Free Before I Wake by Anne Frasier

turn to the right brought her to the damaged door. Before she could change her mind, she opened it and barged through. It closed behind her with a clang. A narrow passageway took her to a room with tall windows that were a lighter shade of black, giving everything the look of a negative.
    Down a wide hallway, smooth linoleum underfoot.
    It smells the same.
    She remembered that smell.
    Like people.
    Lots of people.
    Almost like a grade school. A uniquely human odor of hundreds of bodies packed into a space that was too small. Of perspiring heads and stocking caps that could use a good washing.
    She didn’t want to be here. God, how she didn’t want to be here.
    A little illumination, coming from a few rooms that were apparently being used as offices where electronic equipment hadn’t been completely shut down for the night. A bit of light from street lamps.
    Not street lamps.
    The windows faced east. The sky was beginning to lighten. Birds had started singing even though it was still dark. They knew dawn was coming.
    A double door.
    Had Eli and Franny come this way? How long ago?
    It seemed years since she’d been at Grumpy Steve’s. Years since Fury had given her a ride to Building 50.
    Arden slipped through the door. With her hand on the cold, clammy metal railing, she moved slowly down the steps.
    In a hole. You’re a mole.
    Smell was a time machine.
    It hurled you back into another world with the jolt and intensity and immediacy of an electrical shock. Good or bad. You had no choice in the matter. Your olfactories never asked your opinion. It was just, Here we are! Right in your face .
    If Arden had had a choice, she would have asked for a whiff of her grandmother’s cinnamon pancakes.
    Or the scent of apple wood in the fireplace. Home. Her parents’ home.
    A place of refuge. A place that was supposed to be safe.
    Stop. Don’t think. Thinking never does a damn bit of good.
    She wouldn’t have asked for the stench of a basement. Of damp wood and mildewed cement. The smell of the metal railing on her palm, penetrating her skin. The smell of water.
    Not regular water. Salt water, with a touch of chlorine.
    Her legs began to tremble and she had to stop her descent. With both hands gripping the metal railing, she waited.
    The trembling continued.
    As if driven by some electrical impulse, the trembling traveled through her legs, up her torso, to her arms, neck, and head.
    She broke into a cold sweat.
    Her legs crumpled. She sank to the step and sat there, her cheek pressed to the cement wall, her hands still gripping the railing above her.
    An old fear. An irrational, reasonless fear she couldn’t even name because the visual memory no longer existed. The only thing left was the feeling, the emotion.
    She was a child afraid of the dark.
    Her legs and arms began to ache—a reminder of the passage of time.
    She stood up.
    Beyond the stairwell, metal steam pipes clanged and whistled.
    It’s not the fear of the building . It was the irrational fear of coming face-to-face with the memories they’d taken from her here. Almost as if they’d locked them up in a jar somewhere and hidden them away for her to find upon her return.
    A quart canning jar with her name on it.
    ARDEN’S BAD MEMORIES.
    That’s what the jar would say. The words written on some cute, homey label. The jar tucked into a cupboard next to the strawberry preserves.
    Open the jar.
    Stick in a knife.
    Spread the jam on a piece of bread and take a bite___
    She gave herself a mental shake. How much time had passed?
    Someone shouted her name from deep below. “Arden! Arden! Can you hear us? Arden! “
    Franny. Calling her.
    And now the voice was joined by another.
    Eli.
    They sounded scared.
    They sounded terrified.
    What did they have to be frightened of? No one had taken their memories, had they? There were no labeled jars with their names on them, were there?
    In their case, Cottage 25 was just a building.
    Yeah, like Hitler was just a man.
    Shut up !