Growing into the Job, Post 563: In Vivo

“A building breathes, swelling with its own creations. Inside, cells multiply. Outside, the world waits to be infected.” -  Psalms of the Bliss, II:7

The stairwell was half-dark, half-red. Each pulse of the alarm light carved the steps into stuttering slices - down, down, down. Along with the echoes of my feet on the metal stairs, my breath bounced back off the concrete walls; I could hear the small animal sound of it, high and panicked.

I didn’t know where I was going - aside from into the basement levels of Far Horizons, in the middle of an alarm, when I should be evacuating to the outside. But I did know that up there meant Angie. She’d just - holy shit - basically mouth-raped me and sprayed me in the face with whatever chemical weapon she’d started wearing as perfume. But I still needed to get out of the building - someone had found a fucking bomb! I was a shrimpy weakling now, unable to defend myself, and along with Angie the first floor meant more people, more eyes, more women - and at the moment the idea scared me. So in my panic I just went - down. Each step echoed metallically. The basement level was big, so it was a lot of stairs, several flights. 

The air got heavier the farther I went, humid and chemical. Somewhere below, machinery throbbed like a buried heart. The smell hit next - chlorine, rust, and something else still clinging to me, sickly-sweet and artificial. Angie’s perfume. It had soaked into my scrub shirt. Every breath felt like I was swallowing metal and flowers at once, and it clung in my throat. Without another thought I yanked the shirt off and dropped it on the steps as I fled in my panic. 

The alarm muffled, becoming a deep mechanical drone when I reached the landing for B1. The stairs kept going - to B2, B3, B4…I’d lost count how many new sub-basements they’d dug, and honestly hadn’t ever really wanted to know what went on down in the Far Horizons underworld.

 B1, I knew, had the pool. 

I pushed - as hard as I could, first fearing that I wouldn’t be strong enough - through the door. Success. An old corridor stretched out in front of me, lined with pipes that sweated condensation. Water dripped steadily somewhere in the dark. This part of the basement hadn’t been renovated, and though I’d never had much opportunity to go down to this level, I did recognize it. It just, to me, seemed so much…bigger. Now that I was so much smaller.  

The red strobes here blinked slower, each flash dragging a different face out of my memory of the morning:

Cici’s clipped image from the email, between each muted siren.

Gianna’s smiling freeze-frame from the videochat monitor, when I closed my eyes.

Katarina’s shadow filling a doorway, when I opened my lids again and kept running.

The Coronado girls mocking laughter echoing through the hall.

Then Jewel - hourglass silhouette reflected in a glass panel of a fire extinguisher case: tall, protective, back-lit. Another flash replaced it with Angie’s smeared lipstick, a painted grin.

Each flash of light swapped one ghostly face for another until I couldn’t tell which was real and which was just my brain coughing up static.Basically, I was a fucking mess.

I pressed forward, one hand on the wall, counting doors. Somewhere down here was the new pool, right? Beyond that, I thought, should be an emergency exit - other stairs up. The hallway smelled stronger now, like wet plaster, cleaning fluid, and - yes - chlorine.

When I found the door marked ’Therapeutic Aquatics’ - a fresh new sign - I hesitated. The metal handle was cold, slick with condensation. Behind it, it was as if I could already hear the slow slap of disturbed water, as though the pool were breathing. 

Using every bit of adrenaline-fueled strength I had in my forty-nine inch frame, I pushed it open. The heavy door gave way with a groan and a burst of damp, chemical air.

For a second I thought I’d stepped outside - into weather.  The air had warm weight, like indoor pools do. It wrapped around me, dense with chlorine and heat, and the hum of hidden vents filled the hollow space like distant surf.  The alarm above had faded to a muffled pulse, red light glancing off a ceiling high enough to hide its corners in haze.

Just then I heard something, from somewhere - somewhere deeper than where I was, a sub-basement even more subterranean, under me. A voice, moaning? Braying, mournful? It almost didn’t sound human - perhaps it was more…bovine? - and would have had to have been from a massive pair of lungs to carry though the basement floors.

My imagination, it must have been, playing tricks. 

I shook my head, to orient myself. The pool stretched out before me, larger than I remembered any basement here being.  It must have been built in the renovation - but h-how?  The old floor plan never had room for this. The water glowed faintly blue from lights sunk deep beneath the surface, so clear it was almost mirror-bright.  A silver ladder descended into it, warped by ripples that shouldn’t have been there; no one was swimming, yet the water moved, creating warped shadows on the walls. It all shivered in rhythm with something - repercussions from that bellowing voice? Or the throb of machinery behind the walls?

I took one step inside.  My sneakered feet slapped against slick tile, and the echo came back wrong - too slow, as if the sound had to cross a great distance before returning. This pool area was huge, the pool itself at least twenty-five yards long, reflecting the strobe alarms from above.

Then the reflections started to move, and I dared come closer to the edge until what I assumed was my own reflection stared back, broken by ripples into many.

At first I thought it was the lights flickering, but the faces that shimmered on the surface weren’t mine.  Cici, her mouth forming soundless syllables.  Gianna’s frozen smile, turning liquid at the edges. Katarina’s silhouette. Jewel’s eyes and perfect jaw, all command. And Angie - god, Angie - her red mouth blooming across the water like spilled dye.

And then there was Melissa, with bright eyes flashing and meeting mine.

I stumbled back until my shoulders hit the door. The ripples followed, as though the pool itself were reaching for me. The last time I’d been near water this deep - Melissa’s mother’s house, the indoor pool - I’d almost drowned, and suddenly the memory of that slow, suffocating drag returned in full color. My breath came short.

There was another exit, and I needed to get to it.  On the far side of the pool, a metal door stood half-lit, the painted letters EMERGENCY EXIT gleaming like a promise.  Between me and it, only the water.

I could go around, maybe - hug the wall, as far away from the water as possible, to stay away from whatever dryad arms might reach out to grab me. The walkway on either side was narrow, and pipes jutted out low overhead.  Down here was terrifying, and every instinct screamed to turn back - but up the stairs from which I came was worse. Up there was Angie - and she might be following me, might be here any moment. 

For a long second I just stood there, sweat prickling under my skin, the humid air thick with the smell of chlorine and artificial perfume which I now knew was Melissa - if Angie was to be believed. They’d been pumping her pheromones all through this place?? Is that what Angie had said???  My own pulse seemed to sync with the hum of the pumps. I told myself: just cross. Just get away. Just keep moving, don’t look down.

I stepped forward.

The first step forward sent an echo skidding across the room, a sharp, flat crack that sounded far too loud. The pool seemed to answer with a tremor; a single ripple struck the edge, then another. I hugged the wall, pressing past pipes, my shoulder brushing damp metal. The air was alive with sound - fans, the muffled alarm, the slow drip of condensation. It felt like the whole place was breathing with me, or against me. Trying to draw me in, or push me out. 

Halfway along the length of the pool, the floor shuddered. A deep vibration rolled underfoot, not from above, like a bomb, but from below - like something enormous shifting far beneath the concrete. I froze. There it was again, that low animal bellow from the sublevels. Not human? Or - oh my god - super human? A groan that seemed to push the water into motion. My stomach turned, but I kept going.

The emergency exit was closer now - twenty yards, maybe less, and propped ajar with a foam life preserver - like someone had been here just recently, making their own exit. I could see the narrow stairwell behind the crash bar door, pale fluorescent light spilling down from somewhere above. Outside. That meant outside. Air. Sky.

Something fluttered behind me. Not a person, not footsteps - just the faintest disturbance in the humid air, the kind that feels like someone whispering your name an inch from your ear. And then, barely audible under the constant hum:

“Jay.”

My name.

I spun. Nothing. Just the pool, calm again, the reflection of the red strobes glancing off its surface. I didn’t even realize I’d said it aloud:

 “Melissa?”

Silence. Then, from across the water, the faintest splash - as though someone had stepped into the shallow end. I squinted into the haze, heart thundering. A shape moved in the water, vague, refracted - a shoulder, maybe, or just the distortion of light. But the scent hit next, unmistakable: that warm, clean-skin perfume she always carried with her, subtle and electric, earthy and sweet.

It was insane - she couldn’t be here. But I heard her again, closer this time, softer:
“Jay, where are you going…?”

My pulse lurched. I didn’t look again. I just ran.

The floor seemed to tilt under me as I sprinted along the narrow path, the smell of chlorine and that impossible perfume mingling into something sharp enough to sting. My foot slipped once on the slick tile; I caught the wall, skin scraping against it, and kept going. The red EXIT sign flared ahead like an eye. Another tremor rolled beneath me, the water slapping the tiles now in short, angry bursts, but I didn’t turn back.

When I finally hit the crash bar, it gave with a heavy clunk and burst open into the stairwell. The air beyond was cooler, thinner. I stumbled inside and gripped the rail. The hum of the basement faded behind me, replaced by the faint, rising wail of sirens from outside. For a second I leaned against the wall, breathing hard, bare chest slick with sweat.

I climbed, trying two stairs at a time but my little legs unable, lungs burning, desperate for the daytime air and the space to breathe. Whatever was happening down there - whatever I’d just seen, heard, imagined - Far Horizons could have it. I was done.

Each step up, though, felt longer than the last, less like escape and more like being squeezed through something tight, resistant. The air grew colder, thinner, but the pounding red pulse followed me, the alarm’s rhythm slowing until it wasn’t an alarm at all anymore - to me it was a heartbeat. A single, low thud… thud… thud… vibrating through the rails, through my hands, through my ribs. It was as if I were crawling up and out through the body of something alive, something that could push me out - or keep me in. The red light washed up the narrow shaft, rising and falling in slow surges. Somewhere below, water churned, the sound of it retreating like the slosh of amniotic tides.

I climbed faster. The pulse behind the walls grew slower now, heavier, the beat of something enormous settling back into rest. Every few steps I had to stop, pressing my forehead to the rail, dizzy and nauseous. My head swam with the mingled scents of chlorine and perfume - Melissa’s, Angie’s, Jewel’s and Katarina’s, even Sheryl’s and Olivia’s: all of theirs - like traces of organism, each exhalation theirs and mine together.

By the time I reached the top landing, my vision had gone narrow and grainy. The door loomed ahead - a rectangle of daylight shaking in its frame - and when I pushed, it felt like it pushed back, thick as flesh. It resisted, the rubber seal sticking, then released all at once. Then the world cracked open.

The outside air hit me: cold, clean, and shocking, it slapped the heat off my skin, cutting the chemical film away in sheets. I collapsed to my knees on the wet grass, gasping. So much of me wanted to curl up into a fetal ball and my body shook with the effort of my flight, of the stairs, my sweat turning instantly to chill. The sky overhead was a washed-out November gray, hiding the sun. Behind me, Far Horizons loomed, its windows pulsing faintly red, like a heartbeat seen through flesh.

I coughed, spat, sucked in another lungful of air that stung worse than the perfume still clinging to me. The smell of chlorine, asphalt, and cut grass tangled together until I didn’t know what was real anymore.

Behind me, the building still pulsed red with the alarm - a gigantic heartbeat against the gray sky.

I stayed there a long moment, palms pressed into the damp ground. The dizziness didn’t fade. My skin felt too tight, my limbs trembling like they didn’t belong to me. I could taste metal. Every breath still came, though, with a whisper of that scent - Melissa’s scent - as though it had soaked into me now, beneath my skin, part of my blood.

I looked down at my sodden, sticky hands. If the women around me were all becoming something superhuman, born of Far Horizons, delivered, then here I was: the afterbirth.

Across the lot, a crowd had gathered - patients, staff, some white coats fluttering in the wind. They were gathering in little herds, some wrapped in blankets, faces turned to the flashing lights. They were far enough away not to see me crouched over here, shirtless, small, behind the bushes. On the side lawn near the service drive, I was invisible.

Sirens approached from somewhere down the highway - low, dopplering wails that merged with the still-throbbing pulse in my ears.

I forced myself up, one hand against the brick wall next to the door for balance, crouching low behind the line of hedges, sneakers squelching in mud. The world tilted as my morning assaulted me. I couldn’t tell where the women ended and my mind began. Every movement felt wrong, like I was still connected to the building by invisible threads, ligaments, still part of its tissue. Every voice I’d heard that morning - Cici, Gianna, Katarina, Jewel, Angie, maybe even Melissa - all of them buzzed inside my skull, layered like echoes. Words of praise, orders, laughter. A chorus of them, behind my eyes.

They’d gotten in, hadn’t they? Through their chemicals and perfumes, their smiles and grins, their words and the soft touch of their fingers. I felt lashed to them, to Far Horizons, dependent.

I needed, though, to cut the cord.

I looked up. My car sat at the far edge of the lot - small, gray, a toy compared to the SUVs lined up by the entrance. Away from the crowd. Every instinct said go back, that leaving would make things worse. Melissa would know. Jewel would know. They all would know. But the thought of stepping back inside that building, back to - if Angie was telling the truth - to the artificial pheromones that kept me prisoner made something primal inside me recoil…and something else yearn to burrow back in.

No, I’ve got to get out of here.

I ducked low and half-ran across the grass to the asphalt. My legs felt weak, mismatched to my body. The sky tilted overhead - washed-out white, too bright. I didn’t remember unlocking it, the car, but the lights blinked when I stumbled closer.

The sirens were closer now, slicing through the air as the first of the emergency trucks turned into the drive. Perfect. Everyone would be looking that way.

I reached the car, yanked the door open, dropped inside. The world shrank to silence, now just the hum of the cabin. The seat was cold against my bare back, the synthetic fabric biting my skin.The start button blinked blue. I hit it. The electric motor hummed - a tiny, artificial heartbeat answering the massive one behind me. I took a deep breath as air came through the vents, processed, smelling of…holy shit. Her. They were in here, too, the pheromones.

For a second I just sat there, gripping the wheel, staring through the windshield at the flashing red reflections on the building. I still needed to go.

So I shifted into drive.

As the car rolled forward, a fire truck cut across the lot, lights bleeding across the glass. Nobody saw me. Nobody stopped me.

At the edge of the property, the last pulse of the building’s alarm painted the rearview mirror red. I pulled onto the road from a side entrance, seeing more ambulances and police cruisers and even a news van swarm into the front. I reached up, wiped sweat from my face, then grabbed my phone from the passenger seat.

I’m sure this thing is tracking me.

The outer screen lit up with a single notification - MELISSA (4 missed calls) - before, without much of a thought, I hurled it out the open window. It spun once, clattered into some roadside bushes, and vanished behind me.

The open road stretched ahead, featureless and pale in the late morning sun. I didn’t know where I was going. I just pressed the accelerator and kept driving, every muscle locked. Behind me, the red glow and wailing sirens pulsed in the rearview - the heartbeat of the body that had birthed me raw and trembling, now crying out for what it had lost.

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