No sooner had she done so than there was a shout from down the corridor instructing her to hold the doors. She did nothing, but a giant, suited man appeared before her just the same. Well over six foot tall and smelling faintly of rosewater, he slipped into the car and smiled through the curls of his beard before pressing the button for the top floor. Candice ceded the car’s space, pushing herself into the rear mirrored corner in hopes she might vanish, all the while keeping her eyes trained on a small circular stain on the carpeted floor. The large man spoke, but she could not hear him. In the trap, all sound was muted and distant. She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down. She could ride the elevator two floors. Two floors, and then she would have arrived and could escape. Only two floors to freedom.
But the trip was endless. She waited an interminable age, hugging the files to her chest, her lungs throbbing beneath, desperate for air, and when she finally heard the gentle chime she worried it was her ears playing tricks. The car slowed, then shuddered to a stop, and the opening doors flooded the car with brightness and the odour of soil and flowers instead of the expected stale air of floor seventeen. Candice opened her eyes a crack as her giant companion disembarked, and realised she had travelled to the top floor. Had she forgotten to press the button for the seventeenth? The question lingered only until she opened her eyes wider and saw her destination.
The Botanical Garden spanned the entire top floor of Simpson Tower. Stepping into the faceted glass enclosure was as stepping into paradise. The rooftop garden was divided into rows of plants and flowers, a cascade of colours and scents that overwhelmed Candice, wrapped her in warmth. With uncharacteristic abandon she walked the aisles, past small benches set out to rest upon, ignoring the handful of other people that milled about the greenery, and looked at a variety of plants in turn while a gentle breeze brushed her face, tickling the small hairs on her forehead.
The sun caressed her skin through the many windows, and she turned towards it and closed her eyes. Dots appeared behind her lids, a flutter of coloured lights dancing in strange patterns. When she finally turned away and opened her eyes she wondered for a moment where she had been transported. Everything appeared unreal, hyper-coloured, all except one section of the garden that lay beyond. It was trapped in the shadow of a neighbouring building, and at the end of the aisle an archway stood, wrapped in clinging vines.
“It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?”
Candice shook. Beside her stood the large man from the elevator, his chequered blazer reflected in the wicker baskets hanging above. Sunlight haloed his soft creamed hair, his beard hinted with grey. She collapsed in on herself, shrank from his scrutiny, pulled the files close to act as a barrier. But he would not be so easily dissuaded.
“I’ve been coming up here for months. Usually, I have my lunch just over there.” He pointed lazily across the rooftop. “Why would anyone want to be any place but here? It’s a mystery.”
Candice would not look at him. She wanted to flee, but was too terrified and self-conscious to do anything but remain perfectly still. Only her heart moved, and it pounded.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you up here before. I’m Ben Stanley.”
Candice stared at the ground.
“Lourdes,” she whispered.
He leaned his enormous bearded face towards her.
“Come again?”
“Candice Lourdes.”
“Well, it’s nice meeting you, Lourdes, Candice Lourdes. There are some lovely orange lilies over on the south side of the garden you should smell before you go. They’ve really opened up in this air.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder gently, briefly, before walking away. As he did she marvelled she’d let him touch her at all. Her body did not rebel. Nevertheless, once she was certain he had gone, Candice moved as quickly as she could to the elevator to escape the garden and deliver the wrinkled files she had crushed like petals between her fingers.
By the next day, Candice had promised herself two things: the first was to never return to the top of Simpson Tower; the second was to stop thinking about Ben Stanley’s warm hand on her shoulder. Yet neither was as easy as she’d hoped. In the morning haze that accompanied her sleepless night, she had unthinkingly selected her nicest skirt to wear despite it being tight across the hips, and tried to wrestle her hair into a style that did not appear damp. Her mind idled on the subway, taking the elevator up to the top floor to meet Ben Stanley amongst the flowers, and the smile it brought to her face evoked strange glances. Yet when she arrived at the office the only comment made was by a young temp who asked, aghast, “What are you wearing?” Candice did not speak. As soon as she was able she sneaked off to the washroom and wiped off her make-up. She then retreated to her office and put on an old sweater that covered her bare arms.
When Candice’s lunch hour was at hand, she found herself defeated before the elevator doors, finger hovering over the buttons, unable to decide which direction she should travel. She felt the gentle draw of the flowers and plants on the rooftop, yet knew also the danger the visit posed. Taking the elevator down was safer—she knew what to expect. Her heart raced as she watched her finger drift towards the familiar and practised route. The safer route. But she found she could not press the button. Her body was betraying her. Instead it drove her finger into the other button, the UP button, summoning the shuddering box from the depths of the tower so it might propel her skyward.
When the doors opened, she felt an uncomfortable relief and unbearable disappointment. The car was empty. Completely and utterly empty.
She closed her eyes and inhaled. Perhaps it came from the elevator shaft, perhaps from the building’s ventilation, perhaps it was mere imagination, but Candice smelled the summer flowers, felt the warm breeze, tasted happiness as it wafted past. It lasted forever. She opened her eyes and stepped into the empty elevator. It quietly hummed as it ascended.
The rooftop garden was busier than Candice remembered. Men in pressed suits spoke with women in blazers and pencil skirts, walking, sitting and laughing, while elderly ladies in neon colours inspected the plant-life, small white purses hanging from their scooped shoulders, faces unfathomably loose. Candice stood on her toes and scanned the crowd but saw no one of unreasonable size, no one with a beard so thick it was like a bush. The sweat at the base of her spine was cold, and a hinted dizziness unmoored her—both multiplied by the mixture of floral scents.
As she explored the rooftop garden she realised every sound was distorted. The giant windows overhead reflected noise in odd directions, bouncing it off the floor or the metal struts, causing some corners to be so quiet they might be miles away, and others so loud it was as though people were yelling directly into her ears. The echoes stretched and bent around the aisles of flowers and greenery, intersecting with the potted autumn clematis and the reed grass that gathered around their warted stems. But Candice didn’t mind any of it. In that space, she was free in a way she was not when inside the office, or on the street awaiting her relay of buses. Or even at home, alone in her cramped one-bedroom apartment. Every moment of every day was planned out for her, controlled. But there in the garden, she felt unburdened. And after a few minutes, she couldn’t remember having ever felt different.
“I see you’re back,” said the amused voice behind her. Ben Stanley stood there, barrel chest near her face, dark beard hugging his chin. Perhaps she imagined some shadow dancing there.
“I—I just wanted—I mean I only came—”
He waved his hand to silence her.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We are all up here for the same reason. We all deserve to explore ourselves whenever we’d like.”
Candice nodded, though she didn’t understand what he meant.
“Would you like to join me?” he asked, and pointed to the bench on which he’d been sitting, a bench she had somehow overlooked. Along the seat was an unfolded blanket and a plate of green olives and cubes of yellow cheese. “I have more than e
nough for two.”
Candice didn’t speak, and Ben Stanley did not wait for her. He swooped his hand to indicate she should follow, then took a seat. His tiny glazed eyes poked out over round cheeks as he looked up at her, and all she could smell were the lilacs from two aisles away.
She fought her urge to flee. His smile curled around his temples.
“Fruit?” he asked, opening a small cooler hidden behind the bench. A pair of ladies in their seventies strolled by, sagging heads pushing out of their chests, and Candice waited until they were gone before taking some grapes with a polite smile. She held them over her trembling hand and ate them one at a time. She blinked slowly, then swallowed, and immediately regretted it. They tasted gritty and bitter, and she felt ill.
“So, Candice Lourdes, tell me: do you work in the building?”
She squeaked, her throat constricted from terror. She coughed to clear it, but only managed to loosen the muscles enough for sound to squeeze through.
“Yes,” she said, her voice tiny, her eyes trained on the shadows.
“Well, don’t make me guess. I imagine it’s on the fifteenth floor? Where we first met in the elevator?”
Her face flushed with fire and she had to turn away in case she wept. She saw aisles of flowers all bent towards her.
“I’ve always thought of the fifteenth floor as ‘our’ floor—we’ve had such good times there.”
She looked at him, forgetting her fears in her immediate confusion, and he bellowed a laugh. All the glass above rattled.
“You’re a joy, Candice. A joy. Here, have some cheese.”
He held up the plate for her, but she didn’t feel like eating anything more. It smelled as though it had gone off. She felt overwhelmed by the heat, by the muted sounds, by the stream of passing people, by the omnipresent floral smell, and by the sheer mass of Ben Stanley, who impossibly grew larger the longer she stayed.
“I—I have to go.” She attempted to stand but her legs buckled, and before she knew what happened Ben Stanley had her in his arms. She wondered idly if she might also fit in his palm.
“Are you okay? Do you need some water?”
“No, no,” she protested, wondering if her voice was as slurred as it sounded. “I just need to get back. My break is over.”
“Let me walk you to the elevator,” he said, and did not let her protests deter him.
The doors opened as soon as they arrived, and Candice wondered if she’d missed when he pushed the button, or when the other passengers had walked out. Ben made sure she was safely deposited inside the box, then pressed the fifteenth-floor button for her.
“You be careful,” he smiled. “I hope I see you soon.”
She nodded impatiently, jabbing at the CLOSE button until the metal doors slid shut. Trapped suddenly and unexpectedly in so small a space, Candice’s stomach convulsed, and she could not keep it from reversing. It pushed its contents up her throat in a rush and she vomited in the corner, blanketing the stain she had studied for so many years. She wiped her mouth, humiliated, and stuck her jittering hands in her pockets to quell them. She did not look at the chewed green grapes floating in her sick.
The succeeding week followed the same routine. Candice refused to go in the elevator, instead making the gruelling climb up the stairs to the office. She couldn’t afford to be in that small box again. Her shame over what had happened neutered any inclination to explore the garden, to encounter the strange Ben Stanley again. He was simply too much for her in every way—too present, too intrusive—and she found it suffocating to even think of him. It was much safer to eat only at her desk, hiding in the back office, nibbling her homemade sandwiches while in the break room the younger staff made a ruckus. When her telephone rang with an internal number, she avoided answering it, and no one bothered to find out why. Ms. Flask likely found someone else to torment into running errands, leaving Candice to drown herself in work until night came, at which point she descended the echoing stairwell as quickly as she could. No matter how she tried to mask it, though, the scent of the botanical garden flowers lingered—first in her clothes, then on her skin, and soon enough her every thought was corrupted by a wide field of flowers, the scents of lavender and ground roses in the breeze. She left stacks of work on the edges of her desk and huddled with her dry sandwiches and water, fluorescent bulb above humming erratically. She watched the elevators and waited, but when those doors slid open no one ever emerged looking for her.
Sometimes, it felt like aeons since she’d last spoken. Her days were a series of stairs and hidden cubicles, flickering fluorescents and vacant-eyed commuters adrift in underground tunnels. She woke, worked, dined, slept; over and over again. At times she was curious if she still had a voice, but could not gather the nerve to test it. Instead, she closed her mouth and felt the pressure of her depression dig in its weighted talons. Soon enough, even sleep was denied her.
Having woken without anything to occupy her frazzled mind, Candice left for work a half-hour early, her trip unusually silent. The subway car she travelled in was devoid of other passengers, and when she arrived at her destination platform it too was unpopulated. It would not be long before the sun rose and rush hour arrived, flooding the tunnels and streets with drab business men and women sprinting to nowhere.
The windows of Simpson Tower were frozen when she arrived, frost turning them opaque and milky. The hydraulic doors still functioned, however, and inside the lobby was warm and newly lit. The entrance to the stairs, however, had yet to be unlocked. She tried the handle with as much force as she could muster, a tiny panic growing as she did, but there was no movement at all, and no indication in the empty lobby of anyone coming to unlock it. Even the security desk was vacant. She wondered if she should leave and return later, but there was nowhere to go. She swallowed and looked at the elevator doors, then around in vain for another option. Any option at all. But there was only one.
Her stomach rolled in protest, her mouth dried. Her hands trembled as she pressed the button to summon the elevator towards her. The car shuddered and ground, moving slowly from floor to floor, the pale display’s lit orange number decreasing incrementally. When the car reached the lobby, she felt its gears slip before the doors staggered and wrenched apart. The mirrored walls inside were murky with grime, and it was not until she bravely stepped in with held breath and turned to press the fifteenth-floor button that she noticed the familiar stain on the carpet was gone. She stared at the void the entire way up.
The office was vacant and locked. She inserted her key, the heavy bolt sliding back with a satisfying snap, and merged with the dark. No one else would be there so early, and the air in the dark was queerly muted, the carpet muffling her footsteps. Candice visited each area in turn, flipping light switches in succession, ignoring the flicker and buzz of the fluorescents gradually warming. Soon the sound was joined by a random chirping, so faint she was not certain where it emanated from, nor what she’d done to initiate it. Perhaps that insectan drone had always been there, masked by the noise of office bustle, but in the quiet of morning the sounds were deafening, and she put her hands over her ears to silence them. It made no difference; they would not diminish.
Candice frowned, then shuffled to her desk and slipped into her worn leather chair behind it. Her computer rattled to life, vibrating as the drive spun, the fans revolving. A pale green cursor faded into view, blinking slowing as though taking breath, before the computer screen displayed line after line of unreadable code, paging rapidly. Candice mashed the keys, hoping to stop the flood, and though she saw those letters she typed appear in the intervals she typed them, none slowed the cascade or remained on screen for more than a few seconds before the wave of garbage data swept them away.
She pounded the keyboard but it made no difference. Coming in early and immersing herself in work was supposed to distract her from thoughts of Ben and the garden, but without access to the computer network she was helpless to prevent their invasion at every unoccupied mom
ent. She tried to focus on anything else, tried to ground herself in the present to break the spell. She touched things around her, one at a time, calling out their names to fix them in reality, and she alongside. “Desk. Chair. Computer,” she said. “Wall. Stapler. Telephone.”
It was no use. Details about Ben Stanley filled the quiet seconds in her mind, flashes of him sliced between thoughts; his towering figure, his floral scent from the garden, that deep laugh, the warmth of his touch. His eyes, though small and recessed over protruding cheeks were mesmerising, and she found herself remembering those black stones more than anything else. How they glinted in the daylight. Her fear was immense, but for the first time it was a terror that invigorated her. It was like nothing she had experienced—not like her father, overbearing and reeking of sweat; not her mother, timid and perfumed. Not like the sweating students she had been so removed from, or the worn leather adults that took their place. All these people stood too close to her, tried to grab her and push her. From all their flesh her skin recoiled. But from Ben Stanley’s, it heated. She could feel it in her face. She could feel it between her legs. Her mouth lined with cotton.
A chime drew her from her reverie, so familiar she did not realise at first it had sounded, and when she did she wasn’t certain she hadn’t imagined it. The humming drone returned, amplified somehow, a double sine wave that rattled the small bones in her skull. She padded out of her office towards reception, wondering if Ms. Flask or an eager staff member had arrived, despite it being impossible without her hearing. But when Candice reached reception she saw the elevator doors standing open beyond the office glass, dim light spreading outwards.
Candice tested the lock, yet could not shake the feeling someone had managed to sneak into the office. Why else would the elevator car be there, its doors open? She hadn’t summoned it. The car waited, beckoned, drew her towards it, and Candice hesitated, then turned the office lock. The bolt fell heavily, and when she opened the door the smell of flowers overwhelmed her. The world swayed and her mouth once again dried. She staggered forwards with closed eyes.
Best New Horror 29 Page 24
