Please tell me I have my key.
He fumbled in his sweat soaked shirt pocket, then his outer jacket, inner (wallet, card) and outer (old half eaten pack of mints, nothing else). He tried to remember where he had put it upon leaving to go to the exhibition, which was in itself a joke, as he still couldn’t actually recall leaving the building in the first place.
His hands were shaking, and he dropped the mints from his pocket, unheeding them as they scattered across the ground, some rolling down the ramp. Not in his shirt, not in his jacket. He tried his trouser pockets, knowing that if he put them in either of the side ones, there was a good chance they had fallen out as he navigated his way home in his chair. The prospect of trying to retrace his steps
retrace your wheels you mean
and journey back through that dark labyrinth didn’t appeal in the slightest, regardless of what terrors may be real or imagined.
There was no way that was real.
And yet it had seemed real. It had blocked the light from the old wrought iron lamp behind. Those terrible eyes above those terrible teeth. His body had tensed. It knew even if his brain refused to accept it. He braced himself for the pounce as the colossal beast brought itself even lower to the ground, bearing as much of it’s fangs - and more - than he first thought was possible. It’s fur glittered in the light, a maelstrom of colour. It was like a child’s drawing brought to horrifying life.
She loved tigers. Remember that day I took her to the -
[loves]
He pushed himself back in the chair as a bass growl continued to emit from the creature. From somewhere close by came the whoops and hollering of an assembled group of revellers, yet there was nothing joyful inferred. Nothing but the looming threat of violence, an auditory storm. It seemed to come from the undergrowth all around, yet this was not Adam’s concern.
“You can’t be real,” he whispered.
Fatigue. A simple explanation. He was beyond the point of exhaustion, and his mind had decided to take itself off to sleep early, bestowing him with imagery normally saved for his nocturnal dreamscapes.
The keys were in his back pocket.
“Thank fuck,” he exhaled, more keen than ever to get inside, take the lift up, get into his bed and block everything out that had taken place over the last indeterminable amount of hours. He wished that he still had a drink or two, and wondered if he had scheduled a shopping delivery over the next day or so, or if he had completely imagined that.
And paid for it how?
That probably answered his question.
“Fuck.”
His shaking hands eventually found the lock and he turned, the ancient mechanism initially reluctant to have the key turn and admit him access. Eventually it succumbed and he pushed the door open as hard as he could, not caring how much noise it made as it slammed off the wall. That was, of course, counterproductive, as the door swung back towards him with the same speed at which he had pushed it away, and he had only reached a fraction of the way inside. It connected with his chair and pushed him backwards, slamming shut in front of him and locking again. He cursed again, before movement beyond the glass of the door way caught his eye. A light at the far end of the darkened entry way. There and then not. Movement before the light. Someone had just either gone into or come out of the elevator. He waited, trying to see into the gloom beyond the lower glass panel of the door. It was slightly frosted, wire reinforced safety glass, and even if it was brightly lit beyond, he wouldn’t be able to discern any detail.
The act of sitting, nursing his pride seemed to calm him down from the encounter in the Park, and it already began to feel like it was something that he was sure it was: a figment of his shattered mind. It had pounced, claws out towards him, as clouds of sparkling dust fell from it and covered the root infested path. Such was the clarity of the encounter that he could see every mote, every sparkle, as it drifted down and out of the leaping animal. He had closed his eyes, shrinking back in his chair. There had been a scream, but he didn’t know if it had come from him or was merely another hole in the darkness.
Bracing. Counting.
Nothing.
He had opened his eyes to see the gate ahead of him. Open on to the street. As he drew up, movement on the pavement beyond caused him to flinch, but the two women walking merrily back from wherever to wherever hadn’t even noticed him, too enthralled where they in their own intoxicated conversation. A car went past, the driver visible under the bright streetlight. Then another, followed by a bus about a third full of late night occupants. Night shift workers, or late shift workers. Starting or finishing their work. Each face a solemn etch behind the steamed up glass. The driver a gnarled old man hunched over the enlarged wheel.
Normality.
Sanity.
This had bolstered him on and he had pushed himself towards his building, basking in the light overheard.
Then the shock had hit him like an unconscious manifestation of that same bus.
Now there was nothing except the chill on the night air, causing him to shake once more but not with the adrenaline. His sweat damped clothes would ensure he got a chill if he didn’t get inside. But first. The waiting.
No-one came to the door.
He was half hoping that someone in the building would have. Denys perhaps, heading out late, or one of the other tenants above him - although he had never seen any of them, only heard on occasion - able to hold the door for him as he entered. That would be nicer than pushing he damn thing. And he wondered why he never went out. It was the prosthetics on the back of the chair. Pulling him back and down the ramp when he tried to enter. Nevertheless, satisfied that the hallway was now devoid of life and leaving him no choice (as he had no choice but to go through the damn Park), he tried the door again. His arms were tired. His body wrecked. Yet he made it through, relief as the door slammed shut beside him.
In the gloom of the hallway, he wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t make anything out. There were still no working lights down there, with the overhead strip lights being out of action for as long as he could remember. He wondered why nobody did anything about it, then surmised that he hadn’t done anything about it, so why the hell should anyone else.
“Just get home,” he whispered.
Pushing his way down the hall. Passing between the facing doors of apartments one and two.
His chair slid against something on the floor. His hand pushing too far down too quickly, forcing that side of his body down suddenly and forcing him to curse again. He couldn’t see what he had slid on, shrugged, and made his way to the elevator, pushing the button and watching the light descend until it reached his floor.
The doors opened and he wheeled himself in, doing something he would’ normally do, but with the night leaving him on edge so much, he didn’t relish the thought of his back to the door.
So he turned around, before pressing the button to take him up.
The doors began to slide shut as he glanced out into the hallway. The light form inside the lift illuminated what it was that he had slid on, which was enough to make him move forward, blocking the door and stopping it from closing. It jolted briefly against him, knocking against the chair, except it didn’t matter. He followed the trail of footprints from the doorway of the derelict Apartment One, all the way to the lift. He looked down under his chair. More mud there. It was dark and soft. Wet earth. Large boot prints, the mud obviously caked on. Whoever had been in Apartment One, and whatever they had been doing in there. They had gone in with no mud, for there was only one trail and it lead out, towards the lift. He frowned. The mud had come from inside Apartment One. Yet how? Who would have been inside, and where did they go? He wouldn’t have thought any other tenant had a key. He didn’t know of any reason why there should be dark wet earth trailed out of the door and along the hall.
Moving back into the hall, he had a sudden thought, removing one of the prosthetics from behind him and jamming it into the door way. He gave only brief thought to the damage the artificial limb may receive, and his only hope was that it held the door open for sufficient length of time that he might make use of the light and further explore the entrance to the abandoned apartment.
In front of the door, the same tape stretched across the front. The same sign of the prone figure, with nothing else apart from underneath it the words DANGER OF DEATH emblazoned in red. The tape was covered in KEEP OUT in thick black lettering on yellow. Someone had spray painted something vulgar across the door, and apart from that, it didn’t look as though it had been opened for a long time.
He moved closer to the door, his hand moving up towards the handle. The tremor had returned
or just never gone away
but he gripped the handle regardless, pulling himself nearer. What was that sound?
There. So quiet as to nearly be silent. Behind the door. Static? An electric hum of sorts. He manoeuvred himself on his chair, angling it to the side so he could place his ear to the door.
Buzzing?
He tried the handle, for reasons he couldn’t quite fathom. He had no business here. He had no reason to be trying to get into a vacant apartment in his building like he had a right to. None at all. Yet here he was. Turning the handle and pushing his weight against it from the chair.
She liked tigers.
The thought came from nothing. Nowhere. Just as the lift door shut, blocking out the light. As the door he pushed against gave a little, allowing deeper darkness to soak into the now dark hallway. As a noise came from behind him. From Apartment Two, where his neighbour he knew only as Fletch resided in isolation.
Old bones.
Brittle limbs.
A rustling of paper behind him.
Paper skin.
The smell that accompanied the deep dark was hollow and earthy. The humming sound was louder now, without the door between him and it. Whatever it was that was causing it.
There was a hand reaching for him in the dark.
There was a tiger, down the hall. It was waiting for him.
The door snapped back. It was on some kind of tension spring chain that decided to resist at the last moment. Working against him. He pulled his hand away from where he had curled it around the door just in time, lest he lose a finger. He grabbed his chair, spinning himself around to face whatever it was behind. Coming up against darkness.
There.
A soft click.
A door closing in shadow.
Furtive movement beyond. He felt watched.
The tiger still waits. Get to the lift.
He moved to the elevator as quickly as he could. The prosthesis that he had attempted to jam the door open with was nowhere to be seen in the dark, and instead of looking he jabbed his thumb on the button. Movement from above. A low
growl
rumble that signified it was coming down towards him. Slowly. He glanced at the lights. It had gone all the way up to the top floor. Had it been called up there? He didn’t think anyone lived that high. He knew seven was empty, at least. Eight? The one directly above him? That he wasn’t sure. There was nothing then that would get him to check. He was going straight to his and damn anything else.
“Damn this day,” he whispered, and instantly regretted it. The sound of his own voice unnerving him more than he needed to be. The lift was closer. He kept his thumb on the button. He wasn’t sure if it was just the noise of the lift he was hearing. His nerves were sot through, his body wanted him to damn the chair, damn the fact he had no lower limbs. It wanted to launch itself off the chair, just for want of action. It felt trapped. He felt trapped.
The door slid open, flooding the hall with light and he pushed himself forward, noticing the limb was inside the small carriage. That was one small mercy at least. He turned to face the door as they closed, peering into the dark. Pretending he didn’t notice the extra marks on the floor. There, beside his tracks and the footsteps earlier. Probably nothing, after all he had disturbed the mess rather a lot., and was probably nothing more than his eyes seeing what his brain wanted them to see. It looked awfully like one though.
A paw print. There. Just in front of the entrance.
The lift door slid closed.
He ascended.
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