The man instinctively took a step back. I saw him shuffle. The ray of his lamp zigzagged along the walls as he tried to regain the balance. He could not and rushed with a shout, disappearing into the dark. The light of the torch, as it fell, illuminated the edges of that absurd black hole that covered almost entirely the cellar floor. Incredible that we did not notice before. The policeman had to walk right on his edge, entering, and only a miracle had saved him from falling before. His terrified scream, which continued, showed how deep that gap was.
We came to his aid, knowing that we could hardly save him. Andrei tried to make light, but the torch could not do miracles; the dark swallowed the light beam after a few meters. Probably the pit was at least one hundred feet deep, maybe more. How could such a well exist in the center of the city, just below my home?
Then I realized that the walls of the well moved, pulsating. The light created strange shadows, as if in the depths something was moving, invisible, along the walls. Several things, in fact, fled when the light came to lick them. The agent shouted still, far away, then suddenly stopped and the silence returned.
How did we not realize that the entire plan had collapsed? What now seemed like a big local, until a few hours before it had been divided into so many small rooms that served as condominium cellars and certainly there was a boiler room.
Now, everything was sinking, swallowed by vice. Illuminating the roof, they could see the points where the walls that had collapsed joined the ceiling, drawing the map of the rooms. Of those that had been walls only a few fragments, in precarious equilibrium.
By five and a half of that afternoon, that sinkhole had been opened, which had swallowed up the entire cellar and interrupted the supply of electric light. It was a miracle that the house had resisted such a plague without collapsing. And how could it have happened so silently that it did not alarm the tenants? Then what happened?
We were all there and spotted the tangle behind Andrei’s shoulders.
An agent made an exclamation.
“My God, what is that?”
We all watched, scared.
Something was going up from the bottom of the well. Andrei tried to illuminate it: it seemed like a liquid-like fluid was filling the well. As we approached, we noticed a different density: it looked like a whitish, semi-transparent jelly. The agent, having fallen, should have caused that reaction. By now it was about ten feet from the board.
“Come on, soon! Let’s get out of here!”
At the edge of Andrei, we all drove to the exit. They let me go first, the ladder was too tight, you could only climb in Indian row.
I climbed up, unable to look away from the dam pit, screeching in my steps. I saw that unclean liquid overflowing from the well and invade the cellar. Andrei and the agent who went up lastly screamed for me to run. I turned one last time to see the jelly hit the electric board. There was an explosion of sparks, the plastic form retracted and the cable came off.
Suddenly, the door panel became dark: the current was again missing. We were trying to climb as fast as possible. We were just a step away from the just-mentioned door pattern when the agent behind Andrei started screaming. Andrei reached out to grab it, but there was nothing left.
The scream was moving away, descending toward the cellar. In the attempt, Andrei had lost the torch, now we were all completely in the dark. Andrei leapt up and passed the door. A policeman hurried to close. I struggled hard not to burst into hysterical laughter. That poor man really believed that a closed door could have stopped that thing? The exit was there, a few feet away from us.
Two glass doors separated us from freedom. Andrei grabbed me by an arm.
“The stairs soon up the stairs.”
I obeyed, immediately. The senior agent followed us. The two younger policemen kept an uncertain time, then they went to the exit.
“You are crazy, you will not, it’s too fast.”
But the cops did not listen to Andrei’s screams. They threw themselves against the glass door that opened with violence. The winery door jumped with a dry crash and flew away, finishing against the wall in front. As a flood, the liquid invaded the ground floor, leaping the steps where Andrei’s feet were just before, spurted with the fierceness of a river full of enthusiasm. It developed the agents’ legs just a meter before they reached the exit, and freedom. The men slipped, an agent ran over the glass of the door, stunned.
Inside, police officers watched impotent: they saw the gelatin completely submerged their colleague who was asking for help, filling the entrance completely. The cops were floating in that substance, still alive, and they fought furiously, trying to scream, but they did not emit any sound. Then, with a terrifying slowness, they began to be sucked inward. As they moved away from the door, they disappeared into the sight of those looking from the outside, pointing out that the substance was much denser than it had at first sight.
A policeman stretched out his hand as if to open it, but retreated in time. The substance had lined the door even outside a solid and almost transparent film. It was expanding and rising up, covering the wall like a glove. The agents turned away scared from the house.
Andrei forced me to look away from that horrible scene that had me hypnotized and continued to drag me up the stairs, as fast as possible, opposed by the implacable darkness that enveloped us. Terror had frozen us, we did not even dare to speak, and moreover, what could we have been able to say? Now I knew what had happened to the people of the house, what those poor people had to experience and I was aware of the low probability of salvation.
I saw Guido into his wheelchair, while that horrible fluid ran to him, wrapped it around and snatched it away. I could hear his silent scream in my mind.
We went to the first floor. We felt that the thing was following us, it was next to us and moving it caused a noise like a drowning.
Then we were at the second, then at the third. I was the first to talk.
“What’s the purpose of going to the roof? Well, it’ll still reach us!”
“So then? Should we stop, wait for it?”
“We can try the Chinese system. Maybe we’ll be more fortunate, Mr. Durante has done it!”
Andrei blushed the proposal. The Chinese hadn’t done quite well, what else could we do?
“You can try.”
“In my house, in my apartment. I know him well, I can move there in my eyes closed.”
We climbed up to the fourth floor and there I was leading them into the darkness to the door of my home, which fortunately we had left open. As the cops closed the door, I tried to tinkle the cover and cut it apart, then I pulled the curtains off to get more pieces. The room was lit by the moonlight. Approaching the glasses, I could see the crowd down there and the lights of the city.
Consciousness came to me as a stab.
“My God we are lost. We’ve got everything wrong and now we’re trapped!”
Andrei and the other agent were barricading the door with all the furniture they could find. They did not stop, despite my words.
“What does it mean?”
“Windows! There were no windows to open in Mr. Durante’s locker room, so he saved! Only that poor porthole sealed!”
“But in the Chinese house it did not come through the windows, it broke the door!”
“Yes, of course, but only because it knew they were there. From the windows, it knew they were there.”
“You will not believe that thing can see us!”
“No, do not see us, but feel our smell!”
“We have to plug the window slots, then.”
“We do not have the time! In this apartment, there are eight windows and a door that gives onto the balcony. It would be an eternity.”
“For God’s sake, what should we do?”
“Come.”
I run in the bedroom, followed by the two men. I opened the window and went out onto the balcony. We immediately heard the screams down the street: they had noticed us, despite the darkness.
“Look, there, right after the balcony, there is a firefighting scale. Knew how many times we have to each other complained and asked it to be taken away! Anyone could go undisturbed. We were forced to keep the balcony closed even in the summer for fear of thieves. Now I thank heaven that they have not listened to me!”
The senior agent went to test the ladder. Stretching, he managed to grab her. She turned to Andrei satisfied.
“The lady is right, we can do it!”
But Andrei did not listen to him. She was trying to understand the reason for agitation in the street, how they all screamed at them, what they were saying. I too came to look at it, listening to it; we could only understand a few words.
“…it’s coming up…away…soon…”
Andrei grabbed my arm by making me cry.
“Look! Curse, look at it.”
I looked closely: at first I could not understand, then, little by little, I noticed some oddities. The wall of the building seemed to shake, rather than move. It was almost a shadow, but it was moving toward us. It was only a few meters away.
“Of course! He wrapped the house! That’s why the windows were dark and nobody had the courage to open them! He attacked those who had taken refuge on the roof, wrapping them from outside. He came to them along the walls of the building. That’s what Mr. Durante meant.”
There was no time to waste.
“We have to get up right away. On the roof.”
The senior agent shook his head.
“But sir, go there is a sure death! We try to stay home. Maybe it does not hear us.”
Andrei did not listen to him anymore. He helped me climb the ladder, then jumped over. The agent had remained motionless.
“Soon! Come with us!”
The agent shook his head and returned to the apartment. We heard him close the glazed door and bark inside.
“Stupid idiot. I hope you will!”
We started to climb.
From the floor came the screams that made us excited. The situation had taken grotesque tones.
At last we came to the roof, we saw the jelly drown on the fourth floor and then the fifth. It would soon be there.
“Claudia, you must do as Durante. Enter that locker.”
He called me by name, it was the first time.
“And you?”
There were no other safe places to hide. The other locker was pulled, opening it with force equivalent to destroying the door after it would not be of any use.
“Do not worry. I go on the antenna.”
I knew Andrei had said a nonsense, hoping I did not realize it. Besides, there was barely space for one of us in the closet.
I could not leave it, I could not accept being sacrificed for me. Even though he did not represent anything, I could not accept his decision. Without Guido, my life was no longer important. I was absolutely certain, but the idea of dying, and especially that, was intolerable.
“Soon, soon, move!”
Andrei made me enter the small room and hermetically closed the door. At that point, all doubts became useless. I took the pieces of rag left by Mr. Durante to tap every single slot and, when they were over, I tore my clothes for more material.
Meanwhile, I could not distract my eyes from thick matt glass that, from the center of the iron door, allowed a limited view of the outside. I looked at Andrei, and I saw him running over here and there: there was no place to go. At the end, he seemed to me to decide: the antenna was three meters high, probably a useless attempt, but it was worth trying, I begged him to take it.
Suddenly, the Thing appeared on every side like an unstoppable wave. It came from the outside, from the side walls that it had come up against any law of gravity and through the door leading to the lower planes. It joined to form an absurd lake that went both up and down. There, on top of a roof, the lake was lifted, having nothing to do with it.
Take the casing where it was hidden. The door was still closed, it did not try to break it, it could not see my presence. He stood up to him.
Andrei could climb the antenna for over a meter, but he seemed unable to climb higher. The risk that the antenna was giving worried me much.
The jelly lapped almost at his feet. Everything was lost.
A sudden sketch hit him, wrapped his legs and started dragging him down with an unexpected force. I saw Andrei trying to resist, determined. The antenna broke with a dry crash and the man rushed into that substance still embraced at his useless anchor. The jelly wrapped it around. He tried to scream, but he could no longer make sounds. I could see him rush into that liquid mass and move frantically, uselessly.
But he was still alive. With my great astonishment, he kept breathing, probably that strange substance allowed the air to penetrate. I saw him dragged away, the thing was withdrawing, it had extended to him, and now that it had taken him, he was going down to the cellar.
It left the roof completely. Andrei had almost been dragged past the door. With an unexpected effort, he managed to turn the antenna rod still in his hand, locking it in the door to block his descent. The jelly continued to contract. Andrei found himself with his hands free, then his head. He could still breathe the air. It was a miracle.
I could not resist, I pushed the door with all my strength, and, fearful, I went outdoors. I felt urgent need to run into help him, so strong that I could forget the terror that had paralyzed me until a moment before.
Andrei saw me and for a moment our eyes met.
I see the horror in her eyes, a horror as deep as I had never seen, but also the worry, the fear I could expose, that I was in danger: the Thing could have smelled my smell, come back to me.
He screams something that I could not hear, probably the prayer to come back shelter, or a desperate request for help?
Then the rod broke down and in a moment Andrei was sucked away.
I was alone on the roof.
I had done it. I was saved.
In a moment, in a single instant, a thousand images passed in my mind. Can you be so fickle, change your mind so suddenly? Yet, in that crazy night, how many times have I ever been! First, Guido was the sole purpose of my existence, then the desire for revenge, that of survival, and now, in a single instant, nothing else was interested in saving Andrei at any cost.
It was a madness, and yet… I had seen him breathe immersed in that thing, so he was alive, maybe he was still alive. And I needed a reason to continue to exist, to fight.
I ran to the door and picked up the sharp shaft of the antenna from the ground. I through; As a weapon was totally useless, but in the absence of another I decided to take it with me.
In the dark of the stairs I was paralyzed. I could not, just did not dare I was going down there in the dark. Guido’s wheelchair was waiting for me and who knew what else.
Then I reached the parapet and slipped on the safety ladder. I went fast, trying not to look down. I expect that the liquid that had wrapped the house was also withdrawing to the point of origin: the cellar. I did not dare look down to assure myself, I feared that terror would paralyze me. I knew I had counted minutes, if I had been late it would have been useless and I was determined to go all the way. I had to do it.
The closer I came to the road, the more I heard the crowd screaming. Someone clapped their hands. When the ladder ended, I had to let go. It was an impulsive decision, without wasting time on, with eyes closed.
Two policemen catch me, lying unlucky on the ground. I was immediately surrounded by pressing questions. But there was no time to answer.
“Soon! Andrei is in danger, he needs help.”
But the crowd had overflowed and the agents were busy holding it, separated and dispersing among the curious.
I snatched a flashlight from the hands of an agent and screamed.
“We have to go right now.”
I tossed myself to the entrance, threatening with the TV aerial anyone who was in front of me. I had to be scary, dirty and mischievous, eyes injected with blood an
d that auction in my hand. Curious turned aside and two agents followed me.
When I reached out to the door of the palace there was a cry of warning, but completely useless. The substance had already been withdrawn: entry was mackerel. I was uncertain, just a moment, then opened the door with a kick. I was in the lobby. The jelly had retreated without causing damage: the plants were intact. I approached what was left of the glass door of the landing. The last fragments of jelly swirled on the floor, headed toward the cellar door. No trace of Andrei.
The agents did not stop me in time, like a fury I opened the second door.
The gelatin did not care about me, it seemed not to notice my presence, the sensors that would have to get my smell had to be put to rest. It disappeared past the door: the landing was free. There was to be an explanation for this behavior, I felt like we were close, that I almost understood what it was. At the last moment, however, the solution disappeared, leaving the void: there was no time to think. The lamp turned on, it was too late.
I reached the door and licked it down the stairs, the cops struggled to stay behind me.
In the descent, it was almost impossible to hold the lamp down: the light moved too fast to be able to pick something up. The stairs seemed unobstructed.
At the bottom a nightmare vision awaited me.
What would I do, how I should have acted… I suppressed this anguished question over that crazy descent. But now, there, the problem was immediate and I did not know how to behave.
The gelatin filled the room almost completely and then went down into the well. Unrecognizable, figures were moving inside it: men.
The instinct told me to go to the right, crawling to the wall toward the electric board. The two policemen came out of the stairs and were paralyzed in front of that horror.
The Prison Page 54
