Containment

Shannon knelt beside the cubbies in the third-grade class with her mask firmly over her mouth. She held out the Ficial Counter, switching it on. It buzzed, and she shoved a pink backpack out of the way, pressing it against the back wall of the classroom. The wall crumbled, creating a hole large enough to crawl through. A hollow groan of air threatened to pull her through the hole to the other side, and she fought the urge to pull away.  

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The lights on the Ficial Counter lit up green, yellow, orange, and then red, and an alarm zinged through the air. 

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Teddy sighed behind her, crossing his arms over his large belly. “Another one, huh? Keep this up and we’ll have to condemn the whole building.” 

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Shannon stood up. “I heard there were some studies done on Superficial Contamination in Scotland. They’re finding ways to fight back.” 

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He scoffed. “Right. Even if it works, you know they’ll clear out the mansions before they get anywhere near public schools.” 

 

Shannon couldn’t argue with him on that one. “Let’s seal this room up.” She turned to leave and found her little sister, Marie, standing behind her.

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Marie asked, “Sissy, did you go into the liminals?” 

 

She pulled her mask down. “You shouldn’t be here. Where’s your teacher?” 

 

“Did you?” she pressed. 

 

Shannon shook her head. “No one can go in the liminal spaces.” 

 

“But Mommy did. She’s still in there.” 

 

Shannon picked up her Containment Kit and sighed. “No, Marie. She came back, remember?” 

 

Marie glared. “No. She’s still in there. I can hear her.” 

 

“Come on, let’s go home.” Shannon started for the door, but Marie bolted past her.  

 

By the time Shannon turned around, Marie’s little shoes had disappeared through the hole in the wall. She pulled the mask back over her face and sprinted, sliding to the ground. She reached in, but couldn’t feel her sister. Tears stung at her eyes. “T-Teddy, throw me my backpack.” 

 

He froze, and she screamed, “My backpack, Teddy!!” 

 

He did as she asked and got on the ground beside her. As she crawled into the hole, Teddy pulled on his mask. “I’m going with you.” 

 

Shannon’s heart pounded, and she couldn’t argue with him. Every second she wasted lowered the chance of her ever getting her sister back. She crawled through the hole, into the liminal space. 

 

Ficial energy washed over them like a million ants made of static crawling into their skin. 

 

Shannon and Teddy came out on the other side in an abandoned department store. The Ficial Counter blared so loud it hurt her ears, and she switched it off. Blue-toned fluorescent lighting buzzed down on glass cases, bare shelves, and racks of strange clothing made by someone who’d never seen clothes before. Shirts with two neck-holes and asymmetrical pants hung in drab fabrics with beading that looked like gums and teeth. Watching. 

 

The Superficial Construct was impressive, but she reminded herself, it was just a construct. It had never been a department store. It was just crafted to look that way. 

 

Shannon breathed hard in her mask. Where is Marie? 

 

Teddy pointed at clothes that swayed like someone had just brushed by them. “There.” 

 

They followed the movement through the maze of clothing but found nothing. 

 

Then Teddy put his hand on her arm. She stopped and followed his eyeline. A few rows away, the floor dropped off into a black, shadowy pit like someone had cut the tile diagonally with a giant knife. It yawned open like a bottomless, black maw, hungry and cold. 

 

On the other side of the pit, a flat wall with peeling paint. 

 

And a twenty-foot-tall face growing out of the side.  

 

It grinned at them. 

 

They took a step back, and a clock started ticking, echoing through the level. Teddy yanked Shannon into an abandoned dressing room. The thing’s eyes followed. Hangers swayed on their hooks and piles of clothes sat forgotten in corners, but they were alone.  

 

Teddy pulled out a book from his backpack and flipped through it. “This is level seven. Hide and Seek in the Department Store. We have to-” 

 

Shannon snapped, “Why the hell are you carrying that around?” 

 

He turned the book over to look at the cover. Liminal Spaces and What They Can Teach Us by Nancy Lockheart. “Your mom’s the only one who ever made it out of the liminals. The question is: why aren’t you carrying a copy?” He gave her a judgmental stare, and Shannon didn’t respond. He continued, “According to the book, when the clock stops, that thing will look for us.” 

 

She peered out. The grinning face was gone, but the ticking never stopped. Her stomach turned. It was even worse not knowing where that thing had gone. At least when it stared down at them, they knew where it was. 

 

She asked, “How much time do we have?” 

 

“Minutes at best.” 

 

“We have to find Marie.” 

 

“No, we need to hide.” 

 

“Marie doesn’t know we’re playing Hide and Seek.” 

 

Teddy’s eyes grew dark. “You don’t understand. If that thing catches us, it’ll tear us to pieces. We’ll become a part of this place.” 

 

“What do you...?” Before she could finish her question, her eyes landed on the pile of rotting clothes in the corner. She felt it watching them. “You can stay here if you want, but I’m going to find Marie." 

 

The ticking grew louder.  

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Tick. 

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Tick. 

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Tick. 

 

Shannon felt her face twitching to the rhythm. She pointed to the glass cases along the center aisle. That had to be the safest place to go. They ran and ducked behind the glass perfume cases, and she opened the cabinets below one by one. Empty. Empty. Empty.  

 

Marie, where are you? 

 

Shannon sat on the floor, and the cold seeped up into her bones from the cheap laminate tile. She whispered, “No... we’re doing this wrong... She wouldn’t use logic to go to the safest location... She’s just a child...” Shannon pointed. “There. The dresses.”  

 

They bolted across the store and dove under a rack. Pale cream, tan, and brown dresses hung around them like sheaths of human skin, shielding them from whatever was out there. Teddy flipped through that damn book again. 

 

The ticking stopped. 

 

Time is up. 

 

Behind them, a little voice cooed, “Sissy. I found you.” 

 

Shannon turned, but what she found wasn’t her sister. 

 

Her body had that maniacal grin stitched over her face. Shannon screamed and scrambled away, slamming her knee on a metal bar. Teddy screamed behind her, and then his screaming stopped.  

 

Shannon ran and found Teddy’s discarded book. Her mother’s book. She flipped through the pages to level seven. Her eyes skimmed the words, and by the end, she wished she’d never read it. There was only one way out of level seven. 

 

Marie screamed somewhere in the shoe department, and Shannon sprinted after her. Heavy breathing brushed the back of her neck, but she couldn’t look back, couldn’t stop running. She yelled, “Marie!” The clothes on the racks turned to watch her run. Waiting to see the outcome, whatever it may be. 

 

Shannon found Marie huddling under a rack of purses and scooped her up. She carried her to the edge of the bottomless pit and peered down. Tears streamed down Marie’s face. She whimpered, “I can’t find Mommy.” 

 

Shannon ignored her and looked back over her shoulder. The face hung over her with wide, maniacal eyes the size of dinner plates. The mouth opened into a black pit of icy terror. 

 

Shannon closed her eyes tight and jumped. 

 

Her stomach floated up into her ribs as they fell. She looked back up, and the grin never faltered. The wild eyes followed them into the blackness. 

 

Shannon’s feet broke through something, and they slammed onto the classroom floor. Crumbled ceiling tiles scattered around them. Her mother’s book landed in the rubble. The ground slammed into Shannon’s back, and she gasped for air, rolling in the dusty powder of the broken ceiling. She looked up, and, hundreds of feet above her in a space that shouldn’t exist, blue fluorescent bulbs glared down into the classroom. 

 

Shannon forced herself to her feet and took Marie’s hand. She grabbed her Containment Kit and stepped outside the classroom. She ripped off her mask and threw it on the ground. It was useless anyway. Whether she imagined it or not, she wasn’t sure, but she could already feel the prickle of Ficial energy germinating in her lungs, turning the capillaries and air sacs into concrete and fluorescent bulbs.  

 

She pulled the can of sealant out and sprayed it around the doorframe of the classroom, and it bubbled up along the seam, filling any open spaces. She put the bright yellow Containment tape across the doorway and caught sight of something through the window. A lone, flickering blue bulb lit up the back wall and the face that slowly grew out of it. It smiled at her, and she glared at the thing. 

 

You may have us one day, when there’s nowhere else left to hide, but you can’t have us today. 

 

She covered the window with tape. 

 

They left the elementary school and walked home in stunned silence. They stumbled along cracked sidewalks and passed empty buildings, each one sealed up and blocked off with Containment tape.  

 

Shannon took out her phone with a shaking hand. She called the Superficial Containment Department to report the leak and Teddy’s death. The woman on the other line wasn’t surprised they’d lost another Containment Officer. It was just another day for her. But Shannon hung up and felt a tear cut through the powder on her cheek. 

 

When they got home, Marie dusted off their mother’s book. The cover was splattered with blood.  

Shannon asked, “Where did you get that?” 

 

“It fell with us.” She carried it into the master bedroom, placing it beside the woman lying there in the bed. “Mommy, I couldn’t find you. I tried, but... I’m sorry.” 

 

Shannon followed and took her hand. Their mother’s eyes were open, but her soul was gone. She’d gone into the liminal spaces so many times that they’d infested and replaced her soul with the buzzing, violent static of a superficial world.  

 

She whispered, “Come on, Marie. Let Mommy sleep.” 

 

Shannon and Marie took long, hot showers and scrubbed their skin until it turned pink. She prayed it would wipe away the Ficial energy, but she could feel the prickling static taking root in her blood vessels, her bones. 

 

They got dressed, and Shannon knelt on the rug beside Marie. Her hand shook as she reached for the Ficial Counter. She turned it on and held it up to her little sister.  

 

It lit up red.  

 

Alarm blaring.