Getting Home

Part 43

But still did nothing.

Sophia gingerly picked up the phone.

"It started playing an audio file on the phone," she whispered, trying to peer through the sludge on the screen without touching it. "There's a bunch of them on here—no real filenames or labels."

"It's Ava singing," Sean said, his eyes huge as he watched the black mire swirl above them and listened to Ava's voice drift over them. He even recognized the song she sang—it was from that stupid group she was so into, that one dumb song in particular being one she had been constantly singing for the last three months—

Practicing.

"She's been recording herself," Sean said quietly, pausing to take a deep breath. "Was, I mean. She heard somewhere that if she listened back to herself, it might help her—help her to—"

He suddenly squeezed them both tighter, not knowing what else to say or do.

"Thank God she did," Leigh said, her voice in wonder as she watched the black goo.

"Not yet," Sean said. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," Leigh responded gratefully. "Just give me a hand."

She immediately collapsed as soon as Sean got her to her feet.

"No," Leigh said.

"Here," Sean said, throwing one of Leigh's arms over his shoulders. Sophia slipped under Leigh's other arm, making sure to keep the phone secured in her other. Ava's voice continued swirling up and down the tunnel.

"There's an access point back up to street level a few hundred yards ahead," Leigh said, her teeth grit.

They slowly made their way through the tunnel, Sean and Sophia helping Leigh hobble along on one leg. The black sludge patiently continued flowing and mixing around them, circling and climbing the walls but never getting too close. Walking through it was eerie, disorienting—like walking into a hypnotizing spiral, reminding Sean of a carnival funhouse he had visited once as a kid, the black residue stretched on forever in front of them and endlessly behind them.

Ava's voice continued on, ebbing and flowing as it rolled and drifted up and down the tunnel.

"What's it doing?" Leigh asked under her breath, her eyes still locked to the roiling wet mass above them.

"It must be reacting to the electro-acoustical waveforms from the phone," Sophia whispered, her voice still in awe as she watched the circling ocean around them. "Incredible."

"Reacting to what?"

"Variations in air pressure," Sophia said, her voice low. "God, I wish I had my oscilloscope right now—can you imagine if the longitudinal waves were somehow rearranging themselves into transverse parallel—"

"Music?" Leigh said incredulously. "It's reacting to music?"

"Sh!" Sean hissed, trying to keep their path straight in the dark. The light he could see was disorienting, like walking into a hypnotists pinwheel.

"I don't know about that," Sophia said. "But it's definitely reacting to the voice of Sean's sister."

Ava? Sean thought. Why the hell would it react to her voice like THAT?

Ava's voice suddenly cut out.

"Oh, no," Sophia whispered.

Drops of black goo began to drop down from above. The liquid around them began to furiously bubble and burble as its swirling sped up, turning into an upside down black crashing ocean. It looked like a slow motion tsunami to Sean's horrified eye—the viscous liquid sluggishly stretched towards them, long tendrils slowly reaching and and aiming from all directions getting closer and closer—