The building had gone still by the time David Keller stood up and scanned what appeared to be an ocean of cubicles. Surrounded by a sea of loneliness, he thought. Even during the day, with almost every cubicle filled with bodies going through the robotic tasks of their day, he was alone. Only two years before, on the first day that he had stayed past quitting time, this very scene brought him to tears. Today, it just made him sad.
He opened his emergency stash desk drawer and withdrew the protein bars that he kept there just in case. He’d never needed them, and they were about to expire. He stuffed them into his jacket pocket and loosened his necktie. He hated wearing neckties, but it was expected. He always did what was expected.
David was one of those naturally fit men. At six feet tall and about one hundred sixty pounds, he wasn’t overly muscular, but he was well defined. His movements were graceful and determined. As a child, he wanted to be a ballet dancer and began to study until he discovered that his innate strength relegated him to supporting the female leads. While the desire to dance left him, the good posture and control remained.
Intellect also set him apart. David’s ability to learn far outpaced those of his peers and often made him the victim of pranks and bullying during middle school. Often isolated, he became more self-reliant and untrusting of others. As an adult, he continued to have difficulties with relationships. At twenty-six, he’d never been on a date; although, he had ventured into online chat rooms and would occasionally find someone with whom he could relate on a basic level. In the end, he always found the other person to have bizarre quirks that made him uneasy.
Closing the drawer to his desk, David had the keen sense that something in the air had changed. An alarm went off in his head. What was that? he thought. He glanced up. There was no movement in the room, yet he had the sensation that the floor had vibrated.
David made his way to the corridor, checked his pocket for his house key and his lunch bag, then closed the door to the outer office. It locked automatically. Every door down the hall was shut, the overhead lights already dimmed to their nighttime setting. He moved quickly, eager to shake off the weight of another long day, when the sound reached him—metal striking concrete, sharp, out of rhythm, then silence. Or was that a person screaming?
He froze. It hadn’t come from above or from the floors he knew. It had come from below. It wasn’t natural. David called the lobby. The doorman on duty answered, and David asked whether he had heard the sound.
“I’ve called it in; it sounded like a cry for help from below. I’m not allowed down there. Oh, wait; hold on.” There was a pause before the man continued. “I’ve been called to the parking garage. Have a good evening, sir.” The call ended abruptly.
David tilted his head and listened again. Was it a person crying for help? Nothing. He moved softly to the elevator bank, and standing outside of elevator shaft one, he listened intently once more. Still nothing. Could it just have been the clanking of machinery, something as simple as an out of alignment door on the elevator?
By the time he reached the lobby, the front desk was still empty. The doorman’s chair sat pushed back, the monitor glow painting the edges of the counter. David hesitated, uneasy, deciding on whether he should wait, when the revolving door gave a groaning spin.
A uniformed officer stepped in, water dripping from his jacket, as a light rain had begun to fall. He swept the room with a quick glance before zeroing in on David.
David noticed his eyes first, fiery crystal blue, set in a handsome face with a strong chin.
“Evening. I’m Officer Rourke. Got a call. Someone heard noises in the basement. He thought maybe it was someone screaming.” His tone was clipped, professional, but his hand rested lightly on the holster at his hip.
David cleared his throat. “I believe the doorman called that in. I heard the sounds, too. I wondered whether it might be maintenance, but… the sound, it didn’t sound like screaming, but I was farther up. I’m not sure.” David watched as the man stepped closer to him, the uniform making an already extremely attractive man even sexier.
Rourke frowned. “Dispatch said nobody should be down there. You work in this building, then?”
“Attorney,” David said, lifting his briefcase slightly. “Last one out of the office.” Shit, he thought, why did I say that? It sounds like bragging. I’m an idiot; he’s so handsome.
“Will your key open the lower levels?” asked Officer Rourke. He had already evaluated David. His mind flashed to a room full of men and David as the only one he could really see. He imagined leaning over to whisper to his sister, “That’s the one I’m going to marry.”
“It should,” replied David, noticing a flush in the officer’s face.
“Then you’re my ticket past the first sub-level. Mind?” Please say you don’t, thought Rourke.
David’s keys felt suddenly heavy in his pocket. He nodded stiffly. His heart rate quickened at the thought of spending some time with this sexy police officer.
The elevator to the lower levels was around the corner from the main lifts. The two walked quietly. The elevator responded immediately to the card scan. It groaned on the way down, lights flickering as it descended. When the doors parted on the second sub-level, the air that rushed in was stale, sour, carrying the faint tang of mildew. A single fluorescent bulb buzzed weakly overhead. Several others at spaced intervals lined the edge of the ceiling, leaving the corridor unevenly lit, long shadows crawling along the walls.
David stepped out reluctantly, his shoes scuffing on bare concrete.
Rourke tested his radio. Static hissed back. He changed frequencies, tried again. Nothing.
David pulled out his phone—dead screen, no bars. “That’s… not normal. But I have heard that one of the vaults down here has something in the walls to block radio signals.”
Before Rourke could answer, a deep vibration rolled through the floor. The walls groaned. The same metallic screech sounded just before the overhead light detached at one end and began to swing violently, throwing the hallway into sickening motion. The floor jerked violently to the side. David staggered against the wall, heart hammering. The officer braced himself, hand on David’s shoulder to steady him.
The rumble grew, a roar that pressed in on their chests, and then, just as suddenly, it died. Dust sifted from the ceiling, the silence afterward so complete it rang in David’s ears.
They turned back to the elevator. Rourke slammed the button. The light flickered but the doors didn’t open. He pried his fingers into the small slot between the doors; the space widened a few inches then would go no further.
Locked tight.
David felt his throat close. “Tell me it’s just jammed.”
Rourke again tried prying the doors apart. They didn’t budge. His jaw clenched as he turned to David. “We’re sealed in. We probably shouldn’t try to use it anyway.” They both felt the rumble before they heard it as the elevator car slid down to the bottom of the shaft with a crash. Falling cables followed.
“I agree with you. I don’t think we should take the elevator.”
Rourke chuckled. He looked over at David. He’d noticed the lawyer’s attractive face and build when he’d introduced himself. His joke in the face of whatever this was demonstrated another good quality. Why can’t guys like this ask me out, he wondered.
Somewhere deeper in the basement, the sound came again, metal dragging against concrete, closer this time. A grating, scraping sound. David stiffened, but Rourke lifted a hand.
“Building settling,” he muttered, though his voice lacked conviction. “Could be the tremors. You know, aftershocks.”
David swallowed. “There’s a stairwell at the far end of this level. Since the elevator’s shot, that’s our way back up.”
Rourke gave a curt nod. “Let’s move.”
They set off, footsteps echoing in the hollow corridor. The overhead light buzzed and flickered, shadows twitching along the walls. The silence between them was taut, broken only by the uneven slap of their shoes on the concrete.
Halfway to the stairwell, the floor bucked under them without warning. The rumbling came again, no longer a murmur but a deep, grinding roar. The walls shuddered violently, ceiling tiles, support rods, dust and fragments raining from the ceiling.
David was thrown sideways, his shoulder slamming into the wall. Rourke reached out for him but lost his footing completely, collapsing with a strangled shout as the tremor pitched them both down. The floor lurched again, then steadied, leaving only the sound of settling rubble. A light fixture behind them detached and spiraled to the floor with an uncanny crash. A steady shaking followed, lasting almost half a minute, then an eerie silence.
David scrambled up, heart pounding. “Are you okay?”
Rourke tried to rise but hissed in pain, clutching his ankle. “Twisted it. Shit, it fucking hurts.” He gritted his teeth, forcing himself upright on one leg, but nearly toppled again.
Then the lights cut out.
A suffocating blackness swallowed the hall. David’s breath came fast, too loud in his ears. He couldn’t even see the officer’s outline beside him. He’d never seen such blackness.
“Rourke?”
“I’m here.” The voice was steady, restrained, but edged with pain.
The darkness pressed in, timeless and absolute. Fifteen endless seconds of complete darkness. Emergency lights stuttered on. Weak, battery-powered strips lit the corridor in dim red, barely enough to make out the fractured lines running like veins through the walls. Cracks split the floor beneath them, one wide enough to ooze a thin trickle of water that ran into nothingness ahead of them.
David glanced at Rourke’s ankle. Even in the dim red light, he could see the swelling, angry, ballooning, the kind of injury that sent a shiver straight to the gut.
“You can’t walk on that,” David said firmly.
“Don’t have a choice. I have to.” Rourke tried to keep his voice steady, but it cracked at the edges.
“No, you can’t. It’s worse than bad; it could be broken. And you can’t hop through that mess of debris.”
“I could stay here. You go on and send back help.” The words came out rushed, but the quaver behind them was unmistakable, the first crack in the officer’s steady mask.
David shook his head, already ducking under Rourke’s arm and hauling the man’s weight onto his own shoulder. His legs buckled for a moment under the sudden burden, knees screaming at him to give way, but he forced them straight. “I’m not going to let you stay here. We’re getting to that stairwell. Together.”
Rourke’s jaw clenched, pride warring with pain. At last, he gave a single, reluctant nod.
The corridor stretched ahead, its narrow width made narrower still by fallen pipes, chunks of plaster, and stray wires dangling like snares. The shadows cast by the emergency lights stretched long and twitching, as though alive. Each groan of the battered building echoed around them, so deep and resonant that David felt it vibrate in his ribs.
Their first step was awkward. Rourke’s weight pulled David sideways, and they nearly went down immediately. David steadied them with a sharp intake of breath, then pressed forward one dragging, uneven step at a time.
“You always this stubborn?” David muttered, shifting Rourke’s arm higher across his shoulder.
“Occupational hazard,” Rourke managed, his teeth clenched. Then, softer, “And you?”
David almost laughed, except that if he laughed, he might lose his grip. “Let’s just say I don’t leave people behind. Call it my own hazard.”
They staggered another few feet. Rourke slipped on plaster dust, his bad leg giving way, and the sudden jolt drove both of them to the floor. The impact rattled through David’s elbows as they hit the debris-strewn tiles.
“Damn it,” Rourke hissed, his breath sharp with pain.
David groaned, trying to untangle their limbs, but the officer’s arm was locked around his shoulder. “Well,” David muttered through gritted teeth, “guess we both needed to lie down for a bit.”
Rourke barked something like a laugh, but it was tight, strained. “Don’t make me laugh. Hurts too much.”
With effort, David pulled them upright again, his shirt sticking to the sweat now running cold down his back. Every muscle in his body felt stretched past its limit, but he didn’t let go. Step after dragging step, they moved forward.
The stairwell had to be close. David kept telling himself that. Just a few more feet. Ten, maybe fifteen.
But when he lifted his head, hope slammed into a wall of reality. He froze.
The corridor ahead was choked. A massive sheet of twisted duct work, plasterboard, and the splintered remains of what looked like a countertop had collapsed across the passage. It leaned drunkenly against the far wall, forming a barricade of jagged edges and shadows. Dangling above it, a huge metal box swayed precariously, suspended by torn beams and twisted rebar that stuck out like spears. Dust sifted constantly from the wreckage, drifting in pale sheets through the red glow.
The stairwell was beyond that mess. But for the moment, there was no way through.
David’s breath caught in his throat and his stomach sank. “Oh… hell. We’re not getting through as easily as we thought.”
Rourke shifted against him, his breath tight with pain. Sweat glistened on his brow, his jaw clenched so hard the muscle twitched. “We’ll find a way. We have to.”
“You need to sit for a minute,” David said firmly. “And I need to assess this.” He helped ease the officer down with his back against the wall, careful of the ankle. Rourke groaned as his leg bent, but didn’t protest further.
The emergency lights painted the scene in dim red, their shadows long and strange across the debris. The building groaned again somewhere deep below, a low reminder that the Earth hadn’t yet decided to rest.
David crouched beside Rourke, pressing a hand to the cold concrete floor for balance. The water that trickled through the cracks had spread, soaking into the knees of his trousers, but he barely noticed. He was too focused on the officer’s shallow, measured breathing.
“Let it settle,” David murmured. “You’re no good to me if you pass out.”
Rourke managed a strained half-smile. “I thought I was supposed to be protecting you.”
David met his eyes in the dim light, his voice quiet but steady. “Right now, you are protecting me. You’re protecting me from madness. I think I’d go crazy if I were alone.” His fingers brushed against the officer’s upper arm.
The officer nodded once, exhaling slowly. The hallway was silent again except for the faint drip of water and the distant creaks of a wounded building.
For the moment, neither of them moved.
“It’s funny, you know,” said David at last. “I prefer being alone. People are always clacking their tongues, being cruel as though that gets them something, and looking out for themselves. Entitled. You’re not like that; I can tell. I’m glad I’m not alone.” Briefly, he wondered how it would feel to be held by this man.
“I’m pretty much a loner, too,” said Rourke. His eyes met David’s before he quickly looked away. Too risky, he thought.
David stared at the twisted metal blocking their path, the drip of water echoing in the silence. “So how long before someone realizes we’re down here?”
Rourke gave a dry laugh. “Might be a while. This isn’t even my main job. I pick up security shifts for extra hours.” He chuckled. “Truth is, I was tired of spending nights in my apartment staring at the walls. I’ve been trying not to drink, not to eat just to kill the boredom. What use is a fat alcoholic cop, right? At least this way, I feel useful.”
“You mean,” David said slowly, “the only person who knows you’re here is the dispatcher who sent you?”
“Yeah. And I wasn’t expected to check back in. Now, with half the city shaking apart tonight, I doubt they’ll spare a thought for me.”
David studied him, surprised. “I bet lots of people have thoughts about you. A handsome guy, and in a uniform. I bet you have hundreds of women chasing after you.”
Rourke barked a laugh, sharp and unexpected. “A few women. Those who are about to get a ticket. But I’m gay, so…”
David arched an eyebrow. “Then hundreds of men, surely.”
Rourke’s smile softened, and for just a heartbeat, his guard slipped. “Hell, guys might fantasize about being with a cop, but I’m sure they get intimidated by the uniform, and I’m not someone who goes to bars or gay dance halls.” Rourke tilted his head, wincing as his injured ankle shifted. “What about you? Who’s going to come looking for you?”
David hesitated. “No one. Work, store, home, that’s my routine.” He sat next to the officer, back against the wall. “Oh, they’ll miss me at the office eventually, but I doubt anyone’s coming back here soon. I can only imagine what the rest of the building looks like. It was retrofitted years ago, but an update was recently recommended. The engineers said it would be cheaper to knock it down and start fresh. So here we are.”
Another tremor rattled through the floor, throwing a spray of dust and plaster down over them. Rourke flinched and muttered through clenched teeth, “I’m not so sure we are getting out of here.”
David caught his hand, gripping it firmly. “We have to get out of here. I’ve just met a man whom I want to get to know better. You’ll let me buy you dinner when we get out of here, right?”
The officer looked at him then, really looked, his face lit dimly by the red glow of the emergency strips. A quiet ease replaced the awkwardness of having just met, calm and undeniable. David leaned in before he could second-guess himself. Their lips met, slow, searching, and then deep, a kiss that stole the air from his lungs.
When they parted, Rourke let out a shaky breath. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” David whispered, his own heart pounding. He gave a faint, almost teasing smile. “Maybe you should tell me your first name now.”
“Well, now, I was saving that information for the man who took my virginity,” the officer tried to smile but the knurled brows gave away the level of pain he was in.
“So, no one knows your first name?” David smiled.
“No one.” Rourke chuckled.
“Laughter in the face of adversity.” David slid his fingers through the officer’s hair, just grazing the top of his ear.
“Really David. It’s no one. I’m a twenty-six year old virgin. Just never happened. It is possible, you know.”
“I know it is. We’re two peas in a pod. I’m twenty-six as well, and I never got beyond the first kiss, and that was only with one guy.”
“Here’s your chance. How about a second kiss before the building falls and squishes us flat.”
“Such optimism.” David leaned in, and the two enjoyed an even longer kiss. David’s hand moved to the officer’s thigh. As his tongue pushed forward, his finger began to caress the stiffness that began to form between Rourke’s legs.
They separated by only millimeters. “My name’s John.”
“John. John, no one has ever made me feel this way.”
John Rourke pressed his lips to David’s. The earth seemed to move under him. David pulled back. The vibrations increased, and the high pitched squeal of rock grating against rock filled the corridor. David instinctively moved to cover John’s head as small flecks of rock and dirt tumbled onto them.
The floor took a tilt back, only a few degrees, but enough for both of them to notice. Then silence. Deathly silence. David moved back to take a good hard look at John before kissing him again. David’s hands moved down to unbuckle John’s belt.
“David?” The voice barely audible, not quite a question.
“I want to do this,” said David. He slowly removed John from his underwear and gently caressed him. Leaning down, he kissed the head of John’s now swelling penis before taking it into his mouth. He’d never pleasured anyone before and was amazed at how natural it felt, how wonderful it felt to feel John’s rigidity move into and out of his mouth, and how excited it made him to hear John’s quiet moans. The erection pulsed as he ran his tongue down the length of the shaft. A twitch and jerk preceded the forceful pulse of John’s ejaculation. David swallowed after savoring the taste of John’s seed. He looked back into John’s face. A connection had passed between them that neither could put into words. “I’m going to find the way out of here.”
David stood, unsteady but resolute, and approached the tangle of debris. He tested it with the palm of his hand, pushing just enough to feel resistance. The whole barricade shivered in place. Dust trickled down.
“It doesn’t want to move,” he muttered. “Feels like it’s wedged by this box here. If I push too hard, I’m worried the whole thing’ll come down.”
“Help me up,” John said, trying to shift his weight against the wall. His voice was thin, frayed by pain. “If the two of us work it, maybe we can move it. If it does fall, though… will it fall toward us or away?”
David stepped back a little, peering into the shadows beyond the obstruction. The dim red light barely reached into the far corners. “I can’t tell. There’s so much shit stacked on the other side… broken shelving, duct work. Hard to know which way it would go. Maybe we should find something to push on it, keep us at a distance.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything like that,” John admitted. He adjusted his posture, forcing himself upright against the wall, the effort pulling a sharp hiss of pain from his throat.
David scanned the corridor, cautious with each step as he moved back the way they had come. “I’ll check again.”
“Be careful, Davey,” John called softly.
“I’m watching my step,” David answered, though his eyes kept flicking to the ceiling, to the hanging wires and cracks spreading across the concrete.
Then the growl came.
Low at first, like a beast rousing in the dark. It swelled beneath their feet, encircling them, vibrating through walls and floor. Metal shrieked as conduits stretched. Bricks spat free from mortar. Door frames twisted in their casings.
David didn’t even have time to shout before the world lurched. He was thrown sideways, his head scraping against jagged plaster as the corridor buckled. A roar thundered from above, and the ceiling gave way, concrete, steel, splintered wood, collapsing in a deafening cascade.
The roof tanks ruptured. Water poured down in furious torrents, slamming against the walls, carrying plaster dust into the air and turning it into choking paste. The hallway was a torrenting river in seconds, icy water slapping against David’s body, soaking him to the bone. He coughed, sputtered, struggling to pull himself upright.
“Davey!” The voice was thin but cutting through the chaos.
The water was rising fast. David half-stumbled, half-swam back to him. It was already at his knees, frothing with debris. John clawed for him, his grip fierce. “The hall’s flooding. I need to get to my feet.”
“I’m coming,” David gasped, forcing his aching body forward. The water was nearly a foot deep when he reached him, icy currents dragging at their legs. He hooked an arm under John’s and hauled him up, both of them staggering as the rush of water battered them sideways.
“You’ve got to get out,” John said through clenched teeth.
“I am. With you.” David shoved against the pull of the flood, forcing John toward the jagged opening he’d examined earlier. The crack had widened; water gushed through it like a waterfall, carving its own escape. The wall itself tilted with each groan, shifting inches at a time.
“You’re going through that space,” David shouted over the roar. “Now.”
“No—”
“Yes.” David didn’t give him a choice. With strength born of desperation, he heaved John forward. The officer clawed upward, bracing with his one good leg, pulling with his hands. David pushed at his back, his muscles screaming, the rising water pressing him tighter against the narrowing void.
It was up to his waist. Then his chest.
“Push yourself through!” David roared.
John fought, scrabbling, and then at last his body slid through the gap, dragging water with him. David shoved one final time, his palm scraping raw against twisted rebar.
The current pulled. Something snagged David’s foot.
He ignored it, forced his way through, lungs burning with effort. And then, suddenly, he was free, kicking into open water on the other side.
Before he could even orient himself, a mouth pressed hard against his, urgent and desperate. A kiss, fierce and deep.
“I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” John gasped against his lips.
“Get your fucking ass to the stairwell,” David shouted back, the words ragged with adrenaline.
Ahead, the faint red glow of an exit sign cut through the murk like a beacon. They surged toward it, the water lending speed to their movements. The door was ajar; together they shoved it open and slipped inside.
“Rourke!”
The voice echoed, disbelieving. Both men shouted back at once. A beam of blinding white light swung into the space, bouncing across the ruined shaft.
The lower staircase was gone, collapsed into the flood. But the handrail jutted down into the water like a twisted lifeline. John seized it, pulling himself along, calling again, louder.
“Here!”
More dust rained down, another groan reverberated, and then figures above. Two of them, outlined in the flashlight beam.
“John’s injured,” David yelled. “Can you pull him out?”
“I want you to go first,” John said, stubborn even now.
“Dump your gear,” a voice above called. “We’ll try to grab you. This is Brewster. Summers is with me; he saw your vehicle.”
David tightened his grip on John. “I’ll get under you, lift you up a few inches. Brewster will take it from there.”
Before John could argue, David ducked beneath the water, heaving him upward. Brewster leaned dangerously over the edge, arms outstretched. Their hands missed once, then connected. With Summers anchoring him, Brewster dragged John onto the landing.
“Get him out of there,” John rasped, coughing up water. “He’s saved my life more than once.”
Brewster glanced down, ready to call for David.
But the space below was empty.
David thrashed in the water. His right foot was pinned, wedged between collapsed concrete and twisted metal. He clawed at it, pulled, twisted, but it refused to give. The current shoved at him, filling his mouth with water when he opened it to scream.
God, help me.
His chest burned. His muscles spasmed as he fought to bend, to untie his laces, to slip free. If he could just get out of his shoe.
But the water thickened. His arms grew sluggish, his movements syrup-slow. Spots of white light burst behind his eyes. His last thought was not of his own fear but of John’s face, alive, above the water. At least he’s safe.
The darkness turned brilliant white.
Six weeks later, John Rourke wheeled himself through the hospital corridor, his crutches stowed awkwardly across his lap. His ankle still ached from surgery, scar tissue pulling with every shift. Physical therapy had wrung him out, sweat and tears mixed in equal measure.
He paused, dragging a sleeve across his damp face. He had imagined a hundred times that David would be beside him for these walks, the Journey they have together, that they’d leave together, climb into David’s car, drive home, laugh about how close it all had been.
Instead, he rolled alone.
Room 357. His pilgrimage. Every day since his release, he had stopped here, only to stand outside the glass.
But today, grief outweighed rules. Today, the ache inside him demanded release. He pushed the door open, wheeled inside, and came to rest at the bedside.
Machines blinked steadily. Tubes hissed and ticked. On the bed, a comatose David lay silent, chest rising and falling on borrowed time. He remembered watching as David’s lifeless body was pulled from the water, how Brewster had worked to revive him, and how David had begun to breathe but had never awakened.
John reached out, his hand shaking. He laid it gently over David’s.
“Oh, Davey,” he whispered. “I’m never going to stop loving you.”
One of the monitors spiked, its rhythm accelerating. John flinched back, terrified he’d triggered something.
And then…
“John?”
The voice was weak, hoarse, but real.
John’s head snapped around. David’s eyes were open, glazed with confusion but unmistakably alive. Could he be dreaming? For a moment, John couldn’t speak. Tears blurred everything, and his heart pounded so loud he thought it might tear free. He gripped David’s hand as if anchoring himself, terrified that if he let go, the man before him would vanish again.
“Are you okay, John?”
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