Another door. Another apartment.
It’s a fucking merry-go-round, Adam thought, yet only half believing that. For despite the fact that he was sure he had crossed the threshold of this derelict and abandoned apartment before, he also never believed he had. For if he had, he would remember. And he didn’t remember. Not like this. His memory was different. This apartment was different. It should have been the same layout as Denys and Yana’s, being underneath it. At least in his vague memories it was.
This one wasn’t.
This one was very different.
A long corridor stretched ahead of him, the heat already making him sweat. Perspiration ran down his forehead, his cheeks, his neck. It ran down his torso and his legs, the fuzzy bodies making their way up towards his midriff mingled with it and caused a tingling sensation. He was itchy, yet surpassed the urge to scratch. He didn’t wish to crush anything in error.
He walked down the corridor with ease, fully adjusting himself to the prosthetics now that felt more and more part of him. The ivy that grew from his fake limbs squeezed more firmly to his legs and felt increasingly more natural as he walked. He was thankful of it, of them,
of her
and wondered how much more difficult it would be if he had to rely on his chair.
This made him think of Denys, who had become the Denys-thing. Joyfully acting as a catalyst for Adam to begin his
final
journey. Adam felt a pang of guilt at what had become of both Denys and Yana, feeling for some reason that it was his fault. He thought back to what he had done, how he had treated and spoken to them both, and wondered then if there was anything he could have done differently. Shrugging, he continued walking down the corridor, turning after a few more steps to look back into the main entrance area of the block. Fletch was still standing in front of his own door, staring straight ahead towards Adam. The melancholy was still alight on his face. He raised a hand in a slow wave, those spider-like fingers opening and closing slowly. Then the door to Apartment One slammed shut, and Adam was alone. Turning and continuing on, the walls became alive with thick vegetation, and no longer seemed to be solid. The ceiling opened up and faded away, replaced with thick branches that knotted together. A strange bioluminescence filled the organic tunnel, yet he didn’t see where from. It was just there.
Something moved behind the walls that were no longer walls. There were now gaps between gnarled trunks and rusted iron railings. A flash of something dark. Low and cunning.
Within that forest she had relied on her small stature and her cunning to evade the denizens of the green.
He knew where he was. He was no longer in the apartment block. He was not longer in apartment one.
He was in the Park.
A recollection of his last visit. Of all his previous visits. Of the things that inhabited this space. If he was here, then where was his destination?
This one, he did know. He could see it rise above those twisted green knots that rose around him. The sky above, visible now also, was a deep blue. It wasn’t night, and it wasn’t day. It was somewhere in between. A perpetual half-light. The moon rose on his left, yet he could see the sun wane on his right. Ten o’clock and two o’clock. Like eyes in a vast cosmic visage. Watching him, and only him. Not just those eyes. His destination. The pale bleached edifice that he had gazed out towards from his apartment during every waking moment spent there.
The Flats.
He had always avoided them. Always avoided going there, and yet now it seemed as though that was where he should go. He didn’t know why, only that there was nowhere else. The story was written that way. Not his story, yet he was a part of it nonetheless. That was fine. He had painted it vividly had he not? He carried the scenes through which he now walked across his back. He was god, and he had created this world. Should he not be the one to inhabit it?
Yet he had also painted others into this world hadn’t he? He had been held captive by the story. Not a god after all. A slave. He was merely the vision. One of five senses. He had been so enraptured by the words and the vivid imagery that they caused to bloom and grow inside him. And if this was the world he had created, brought to life, and if it was the world from the words that had been given him, then he knew all too well what waited for him.
He pulled the strap tighter over his shoulder and found himself shivering despite the near-overwhelming heat.
Was that a growl? A deep note of aggression beyond those twisted tendrils.
Adam stopped and peered closer within, another flash of movement, sleek, attempting perhaps to give the appearance of trying to hide and stay out of sight and yet…not. He realised it didn’t care if it was seen. It wanted to be seen.
He walked on. Through and within. The pathways undulated, twisted and whorled around him. Every time he thought he had his bearings, he would look up and find the bone bleached edifice of the Flats at an angle he didn’t expect. They loomed over him, almost leaning at an impossible angle. At times he felt as though he was walking through mere fractured shards of this reality, that had been collected and then spread out haphazardly across the surface of a great table.
Great signs lay strewn around him, as though from his forefathers, a civilisation that had existed previously, before the one that he was a part of had intruded upon the wasted land they had left. He was the interloper here. And he felt as such.
A large sign with garbled words - letters that didn’t, and couldn’t, make sense. He ducked behind it as a group of shaded feral things slunk past from the direction of the Flats. These he had seen before. From a distance. They had made it clear that he wasn’t requested here. Nor was he welcome.
He was quick now. With his new legs that felt as they were his old legs. The limbs he had been born with. Even when he looked down upon them, as he half crouched between the rusting metal sign and a wall of greenery, he couldn’t see where these ended and his true flesh began. They were his true flesh. They always were.
The true flesh.
The creatures beyond creeped by without noticing him. Bizarre amalgamations of animal and human. He had once seen sculptures of similar things, possibly in the Raschold Gallery when he was younger, or some other. An art show at uni? A lecture? He wished he could recall the artist but it escaped him, like so much seemed to.
Thinking about moving back towards the path, he recalled the story once more. Ivy had been quiet. Ivy had been quick. He could be so if he wished. And he was. He moved furtively towards a large space ahead. The tennis courts. There was some kind of turnstile to the left, he would go through there, or over. He would be out of the Park and then he would just have to cross the road, and enter the building. She would be there. Waiting for him. At the top. He just had to ascend.
There was something in the tennis courts. It’s colossal body sprawled across the remains of the centre net. A body crossed with black scars on bleached fur. Fur that sparkled under the dual light of the sun and the moon. Adam ducked further out of sight.
He watched.
He waited.
As he did so…
Ivy ascended. She could still hear the ocean from a room now far beyond. Her sisters voice had been drowned out by the deepening growl of the vast engine that churned and whirred far below. She knew that she should have been afraid before now. At the terrible things in the blasted forest. The tiger that slept noisily in front of the tower. None of that concerned her, her mind fixated only on finding her mother. A mother that had abandoned her without a further thought. A mother who must surely have understood that her daughter would come for her. That daughters always come for their mothers.
Or fathers.
Even from across oceans of time.
They call for them.
Adam lay low, and moved slowly through the undergrowth at the side of the courts. All was still and all was silent, save for the ragged snoring of the sleeping beast. A nebula of tiny stars billowed out with every exhalation, glittering in the gloom. At one point, the great thing stirred, breathing in loudly and abruptly, adjusting it’s position as it did so. Adam was sure it would wake, he was now directly across from it’s gaze. If it opened one of those eyes, what would it see? What would he see? A blackened orb in that terrible head, burning with a dark fire?
He dared not move, and passed the few minutes by exploring his flesh, plucking another fat insect off his skin and placing it in his mouth, under his tongue. It dissolved slowly, unleashing a wave of bitter foulness across his tastebuds. How quickly he had become accustomed to the taste. How much now did he relish it.
Moving again, he creeped across the front of the court. The undergrowth had grown into the path that ran alongside it, impeding his progress that way, leaving him with no choice. He could see the turnstile ahead. Close. Closer. He crept. He paused. He looked around, glancing at the scarred thing, waiting for it to awaken.
Ten feet. The turnstile was close. It was seized shut, he could see it from where he tiptoed across the concrete surface of the court. Ivy covered it, and kept it still. He would have to climb over, but he didn’t think that would be a problem. Not now.
Five feet.
Three feet.
He began to climb it. The ivy provided the footholds, and where it did not, the iron did. It was about seven feet high, but he was climbing it.
A phone could be heard to ring. High up and distant, yet shrill and piercing given that the air was dead to all other sound. He heard it.
The colossal beast heard it.
One eye snapped open, white then black as it rolled from where it lay upturned in the dark socket. It found Adam and burned with that terrible fire.
It found it’s fangs, snarling.
It found it’s claws, leaping.
A phone rang somewhere below her. In front of the ocean room, there had been an old antique looking telephone. Ivy knew what it was, even though they had never had one in the familial home. It wasn’t ringing for her. Violet could speak to her inside their head if she wanted to, but this was for someone else. She thought that he was above her, but he could also be below her. What was up was sometimes down and vice versa. That she had been told when she was young and had always believed it.
The girl who had lost her mother continued her ascent, even as she could hear outside, above the cacophony of the machine, beyond the sound of the telephone, a terrible roar, as the tiger awoke again. It must have returned to sleep after her passing, but something had awoken it. Something had angered it.
She shivered, despite herself.
The metal shook as the tiger bore down upon it. Adam was nearly at the top, about to throw his body weight up and over, when the force from the creature nearly threw him off. He lost his grip and fell slightly, managing to catch hold of more greenery, pulling himself back up and getting proper purchase once more, wrapping the ivy around his leg, holding him in place. He bore another slam. The metal groaned and creaked. Something snapped and the turnstile buckled slightly.
I don’t have much time, he thought, deciding to loosen the ivy that had wrapped around his leg so he could climb once more. He timed it between slams, gripping tightly every time the tiger came up against the bars Coughs of glitter and saliva flew up past him. The smell of rancid meat. Whatever it had last consumed, rotting between it’s teeth.
He was at the top now, one attempt to swing over and he lost his grip, falling another foot, inciting the beast to give a more fervent slam. It thought it would have him, but he would deny it the satisfaction. Gritting his teeth, screaming between them, and pulling himself back up. He swung his leg out, over. One arms wrapped around the top now, his body weight shifting, now more of him on the other side. He just had to hold his grip and then descend. It was always easier to descend.
Yet the beast had other ideas. As he began to climb down it saw he was closer and renewed it’s charges with increased aggression.
Another slam and his grip loosened. He tried to get another hold but the next slam came almost immediately, and he was off, forced from the turnstile and back across the pavement towards the road. He landed with a heavy thud, the breath knocked from him. His head cracked off the tarmac, sending lightning through his vision. For one brief moment it was followed by darkness, to the extent that he had time to wonder if the knock to his head had sent him blind. Then it returned, and he saw that he was in the middle of the road, looking skyward. He could still hear the tiger but it was distant, inconsequential, already.
The Flats loomed over him, and beckoned him inside.
He stood - made sure he still had his paintings - and entered, unable to resist or refuse the invitation.
As Ivy climbed, she heard a new noise there, far below. The large and heavy door. It opened, then slammed shut.
Someone was in here with her. Gone from above, now below.
“He’s coming,” Violet whispered in her head.
Ivy climbed.
No comments:
Post a Comment