blood. Instead he turned and without
looking back left Jennifer’s flat to the sound of sobs and ragged
breathing.
Threlfall
House had fourteen floors; a stalagmite of shite brought from the
brink of demolition on more occasions than anyone could remember.
The housing estate that existed in its shadow was no better; tried,
run down, the people who lived there pretty much the
same.
Anderson
loathed the place. The smell of stale piss and booze pervaded the
stairwells. And the lifts were something else. Floors eroded by
years of drunks using them as latrines, the top layer of linoleum a
corroded ovoid, a mini piss-lake for all to avoid.
But if
Anderson was totally honest, it wasn’t this that kept him from
using the lift. It was something far more primordial, far more
basic.
Confinement wasn’t a friend of Cory Anderson. The thought of
those small cars and the long drop had him shivering and heading
straight for the stairwell. What was nine floors amongst friends?
Besides he’d have guilt and the sharp stinging in his knuckles to
keep him company on the way down.
He’d not
meant to loose it like that. He just wanted to know why Jennifer
had traded him in for a no-mark like Malcolm. And then the little
shite had answered the door, the grin on his face, Jennifer’s
lipstick on his neck, pushing all the wrong buttons and setting the
green eyed beast loose. It had started with a shove and then went
from there. Anderson’s muse unleashed in the tiny flat in a giant
turd of a building.
Anderson
began his descent, his footfalls amplified by the concrete space
about him. He kept his hands in free space, avoiding the stair
rail. His hands hurt enough without coming across a hypodermic
strategically placed to catch an unsuspecting police officer or
Community Nurse.
Junkies
and their sense of humour.
He made
the seventh floor before he heard it. It was loud enough - close
enough - to make him stop in mid stride.
Growling.
His first
thought was that a dog was loose in the stairway. There were plenty
of them in the building after all; their owners mostly drug dealers
or games machine junkies. He tried to place it. Was it above or
below? He waited; his breath on hold for a while.
It came again, from the landing below, thick and gruttal. And
no matter how many times Anderson told himself the contrary, he
knew now that it was definitely not a dog. He knew this for many
reasons, but the main clue making him sure enough to start backing
up the stairs, was the click
clicking sound accompanying the growls; the
sound of big claws tapping against concrete.
Someone
had once said that we fear the unknown more than anything else in
the world; and it was this adage that had Anderson going against
his instinct to get the hell moving and encouraging him to peer
over the railings, to make known the unknown, to quell the gnawing
fear in his belly.
Slowly he
inched over the banister, the vertical corridor of railings coming
into view and dropping out below in a dizzying sense of height. He
leaned over a little more, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever
was on the next landing, and began to question his initial
trepidation. He was about to call time on his misplaced anxiety
when he saw it.
And it saw
him.
Anderson
pulled sharply away from the railing, his back slamming against the
pistachio coloured wall behind him. He wished that the concrete
barrier could absorb him in some way, make him invisible to the
thing he’d seen on the floor below. The thing that was slowly
making its way towards him.
It had
been a brief glimpse, but the image was branded upon his brain,
seared there as though he’d inadvertently stared at the mid-summer
sun. Red eyes, it had red eyes and they bore into him, marked him
far deeper than the nails of his ex-lover ever could. And teeth, oh
God it had teeth, lots of them that cluttered its maw so much so
that the mouth had been forced into a razor sharp grin.
Anderson
noted the door leading to the seventh floor
looking back left Jennifer’s flat to the sound of sobs and ragged
breathing.
Threlfall
House had fourteen floors; a stalagmite of shite brought from the
brink of demolition on more occasions than anyone could remember.
The housing estate that existed in its shadow was no better; tried,
run down, the people who lived there pretty much the
same.
Anderson
loathed the place. The smell of stale piss and booze pervaded the
stairwells. And the lifts were something else. Floors eroded by
years of drunks using them as latrines, the top layer of linoleum a
corroded ovoid, a mini piss-lake for all to avoid.
But if
Anderson was totally honest, it wasn’t this that kept him from
using the lift. It was something far more primordial, far more
basic.
Confinement wasn’t a friend of Cory Anderson. The thought of
those small cars and the long drop had him shivering and heading
straight for the stairwell. What was nine floors amongst friends?
Besides he’d have guilt and the sharp stinging in his knuckles to
keep him company on the way down.
He’d not
meant to loose it like that. He just wanted to know why Jennifer
had traded him in for a no-mark like Malcolm. And then the little
shite had answered the door, the grin on his face, Jennifer’s
lipstick on his neck, pushing all the wrong buttons and setting the
green eyed beast loose. It had started with a shove and then went
from there. Anderson’s muse unleashed in the tiny flat in a giant
turd of a building.
Anderson
began his descent, his footfalls amplified by the concrete space
about him. He kept his hands in free space, avoiding the stair
rail. His hands hurt enough without coming across a hypodermic
strategically placed to catch an unsuspecting police officer or
Community Nurse.
Junkies
and their sense of humour.
He made
the seventh floor before he heard it. It was loud enough - close
enough - to make him stop in mid stride.
Growling.
His first
thought was that a dog was loose in the stairway. There were plenty
of them in the building after all; their owners mostly drug dealers
or games machine junkies. He tried to place it. Was it above or
below? He waited; his breath on hold for a while.
It came again, from the landing below, thick and gruttal. And
no matter how many times Anderson told himself the contrary, he
knew now that it was definitely not a dog. He knew this for many
reasons, but the main clue making him sure enough to start backing
up the stairs, was the click
clicking sound accompanying the growls; the
sound of big claws tapping against concrete.
Someone
had once said that we fear the unknown more than anything else in
the world; and it was this adage that had Anderson going against
his instinct to get the hell moving and encouraging him to peer
over the railings, to make known the unknown, to quell the gnawing
fear in his belly.
Slowly he
inched over the banister, the vertical corridor of railings coming
into view and dropping out below in a dizzying sense of height. He
leaned over a little more, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever
was on the next landing, and began to question his initial
trepidation. He was about to call time on his misplaced anxiety
when he saw it.
And it saw
him.
Anderson
pulled sharply away from the railing, his back slamming against the
pistachio coloured wall behind him. He wished that the concrete
barrier could absorb him in some way, make him invisible to the
thing he’d seen on the floor below. The thing that was slowly
making its way towards him.
It had
been a brief glimpse, but the image was branded upon his brain,
seared there as though he’d inadvertently stared at the mid-summer
sun. Red eyes, it had red eyes and they bore into him, marked him
far deeper than the nails of his ex-lover ever could. And teeth, oh
God it had teeth, lots of them that cluttered its maw so much so
that the mouth had been forced into a razor sharp grin.
Anderson
noted the door leading to the seventh floor
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