by David Jester
Now, as Eddie practically bolted around the side of the building, disappearing in his eagerness to get to the entrance, Darren found himself wondering if this was a step too far; if this time they had been the crazy ones for agreeing to go along with Eddie’s plan.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, gave the final window one last, shy and wary glance—his heart stopped and sank when he saw movement, before jumping back into his chest when he realized it was his own reflection—and then turned the corner. A vast field of black opened in front of him. He could see a gravel path leading to the entrance ahead and branching out before wrapping into a circle to form what he assumed was a car park, but he couldn’t see any cars, or any signs declaring a purpose or name for the building.
The windows on the front of the building were bigger and the blinds were drawn, he couldn’t see in, nor could he see his own reflection as he scurried past. Eddie was already at the door, standing back and arching his neck to look up at the looming facade.
He turned to his friends and gave them an exaggerated shrug.
“Now what?” Darren asked, part of him hoping the answer would be, “now we turn around and go home.”
Eddie shrugged, took a moment to ruminate on something and then stepped forward. The entrance was a large double door with one side blocked off and a smaller door etched into one of the panels. It had once been a glorious entranceway, there to impress the carriages that pulled up outside with privileged guests, but now it was clinical and felt more like the entrance to a prison rather than the stately home that it might have once been. Eddie put his hand on the handle, turned, and pushed. Even in the darkness, Darren and Malcolm could see the gleam on their friend’s face as the door gave way and steadily creaked open.
Malcolm stepped forward, trying to sneak a peek over Eddie’s shoulder; Darren reluctantly followed. Eddie threw a finger to his lips, gave his friends a wide-eyed stare, and then poked his head through the gap. A large unlit room greeted him. The inside of the building was a little brighter than the outside, the back of the room was lit by an ethereal glow, a scattering of light provided by a distant room or hallway that had crept under the crack in one of the doors. The front end was dotted with stars of red and green, little pulses of light from electronic equipment, most of which was behind a reception area. The reception area was empty and partitioned off by a sheet of Perspex. Opposite it, a smaller but equally reinforced area also offered an array of lights. This was where Eddie had seen the security guard sleeping earlier in the day and, as he strained his eyes to stare at the silhouette slouched before the array of monitors—all of them turned off, their standby lights aglow—he saw that the man was still immobile.
He frowned curiously at the slouched figure before ducking his head back out of the room and closing the door slightly to shield his voice from the inside.
“The coast is clear,” he said.
“Really?” Darren hissed, bewildered.
Eddie nodded. “The security guard is still asleep.”
“The same guard?”
Eddie nodded vigorously. “I think so.”
“But it’s dark in there,” Malcolm noted. “If he’s trying to sneak a few winks, why did he turn all the lights off? Hardly inconspicuous, is it?”
“Inconspicuous? Where the fuck did you learn that word?”
Malcolm frowned and stared at his redheaded friend.
Eddie shrugged. “Maybe he can’t sleep with the light on, who knows; who cares? The point is, he’s asleep and the door is open, so what the fuck are we waiting for?”
Malcolm turned to Darren, swapping a concerned stare. They were both thinking the same thing. They both felt the same pangs of dread and sensed that something was wrong, but what was the worst that could happen? Eddie was right, the doors were open and the guard was asleep. They could be in and out before anyone knew what had hit them.
“After you,” Malcolm said, nodding to Eddie who was delighted to be given the lead.
16
Eddie was first, his feet stretching out and landing delicately on the hardwood floor inside the building. He made sure he had a firm footing, made sure his night vision had correctly adjusted and he made sure he knew which direction he was walking in, then he stepped inside. The others cautiously followed with Darren the last in, shutting the door gently behind him and cringing when he heard it squeak.
The wind had died down outside and they could hear the sounds of their own heavy breathing and their own pounding hearts as they ventured further inside the building. Eddie made a beeline for the light that bled through the door up ahead, a door that led to the hallway and the rest of the building, but he slowed his steps and held his breath as he passed the small security area.
A cutaway piece of Perspex looked out from the security office onto a thin passageway bordered by a metal railing. It was there so that the guard could check everyone that entered and exited the building, giving them the once-over before they moved onto the reception area on the other side. But the guard was fast asleep in his small alcove, his feet up on the desk, his shadowed face peering spookily at the three teenagers as they crept past.
Eddie paused at the end, just before leaving the inspection point. The railing on his left ended, curving into the ground. On his right was the entrance to the security room—made to be locked and secured at all times—and the door was wide open.
He felt Malcolm bump into him, felt his friend pinch his lower back and urge him forward, not wanting to speak or even whisper when they were so close to the sleeping guard, but Eddie didn’t move. He contemplated ducking inside and shutting the door, he thought about making sure that the guard was asleep, or doing his best to make sure that the guard wouldn’t wake up. He knew his friends would object, they wouldn’t want anyone harmed, they never did, but if—
He stopped his pondering when a loud bang erupted inside the room. He felt his heart jump into his throat, his knees bend and his body crouch almost instinctively, preparing to duck into the fetal position. Then he felt the wind on his back and heard the high pitch whistling as it rushed through the room, in and out of the crevices.
The wind had picked up outside and had blown the door wide open, slamming it against its hinges. Darren hadn’t shut the door properly; he had been too worried about the noise it made as it crept on its hinges that he hadn’t clicked it into place.
They all stood still, rigid in fear. Their attentions immediately turned to the security guard, whose shadowed form they expected to stand up and snap on the lights. He didn’t move, didn’t seem affected by the sound of the wind as it cut through the building, or by the sound of the door as it slammed a staccato, nerve-jolting beat against the wall.
Eddie was about to exclaim his relief to his friends when he heard a noise from elsewhere in the building. This one came just as suddenly, but was far more worrying. The door at the end of the hallway suddenly sprang open, throwing a veil of bright, warm light onto the hardwood floor. The sea of orange was darkened by two looming shadows that paused at the doorway and then entered the room. They were talking to each other but their voices were incoherent, sounding rushed and jumbled.
They were footsteps away from turning the corner and seeing the three boys standing there. Eddie turned around, looked towards the door as it continued to rattle in the wind. It seemed like a mile away, he knew they would see him as he ran for it, but at least he would be outside, at least—
He felt two strong palms on his back as he was pushed into the security room. He stumbled inside, with Malcolm following close behind.
“Hide,” Malcolm hissed, his voice hushed but sharp.
The room was small with a thin desk that wrapped around most of it. The security guard was at the top end, his feet up on the desk. Eddie, on his hands and knees, scurried under the part of the desk that sat underneath the window, out of sight from anyone who tried to creep by. Malcolm joined him, squeezing tightly beside him.
They both looked up forlornly as Darren’s darkened
figure approached. They could see the whites of his eyes and the terror inside them as he realized there was no room for him.
Darren thought he was going to be seen. He was sure he was going to give the game away. An avalanche of thoughts rushed through his mind.
Should I make a run for it?
Should I lie down on the floor and stay low?
He heard the voices increase, heard the speedy tones grow in volume and rapidity. It was like white noise, an encroaching, mumbled assortment of audio static and one that was accompanied by shuffling footsteps, unstable feet that scurried animal-like across the floor.
He could fit underneath the desk opposite, but then he would be visible through the window and the open door. If they turned on the main lights, which they probably would, it would just take a glance to spot him.
They’re going to see me. They’re going to see me.
The voices stopped. Darren silenced his thoughts; held his breath. There were no footsteps, no noise. He looked towards the doorway, angling his vision towards the back of the room where they were approaching from. He expected to see a ghostly figure staring at him, looming over him with a wicked smile. He saw only blackness and then, after hearing a faint click, he saw the back of room explode into light.
The voices started again. The footsteps continued their shuffling.
They were closing in on the room. He could hear them just a few feet away.
The security room was still dark. But they were turning lights on as they went and, as soon as the main light clicked on, they would see him crouching there.
He knew there was only one thing for it. He had only one reasonable option. He had to shuffle past the sleeping guard and hide underneath the desk that he was sleeping in front of. He wouldn’t be seen through the window or the door and there would be enough room for him there. He could see the gray block of space beckoning him.
He scuttled forward, ducked to a crawl and stopped when he felt a wet and cold substance seep into his pants and soak into the palms of his hands. He grimaced, tried to shake it off. He told himself that the guard had probably spilt his tea or coffee when he had fallen asleep, but worried that it would be something far more disgusting.
He had seen tell-all documentaries about night workers like security guards. They were alone all night, bored out of their minds, and prone to depression and insomnia, the sort who relished the late hours and the solitude. They often drank themselves into a stupor and spent the night singing merrily or watching online pornography. He worried that this guard had done the same, that he had drunk himself into a drunken stupor, fallen asleep, and then pissed himself.
The thought made him sick, especially as he couldn’t see the substance that coated his clothes and his skin. He didn’t want to know what it was, not while it was dark and he couldn’t do anything about it. He didn’t make an effort to smell his clothes, didn’t even allow himself to breathe through his nose. He tried to blank it out as he crawled through it and hid underneath the desk.
The three teenagers held their breaths when the lights snapped on in the main room. Malcolm and Eddie watched the reflections of the two men on the wall opposite as they strode past the checkpoint. One of them seemed to walk with a shuffling, staggering movement and both of them looked like they were wearing robes, something that was confirmed when the shuffling one paused in the center of the window and turned to look inwards. He was wearing a dressing gown on top of a pair of pajamas, they both saw it and they both thought it was strange, but they had more pressing worries to address. They thought he had seen them and were sure that their game was up just as quickly as it had started, but after getting a good look at the room and whatever was inside it that took his fancy, he continued onwards.
One of them spoke in a heavy whisper, a mumbling, bumbling, and cursing voice. The two teenagers listening intently under the desk picked up nothing coherent except a barrage of random curse words. The other one seemed silent, they heard him mumble at one point, a heavy and bass-filled affirmation, but he didn’t make another sound.
The men in gowns shut the front door and the two teenagers heard them lock and bolt it. They knew there was little chance they would be able to escape through there The door was solid and without a key they wouldn’t be able to get through, but they had no concerns about getting out, not yet anyway. They were still intent on finding out if there was anything worth their while inside.
The men in gowns shuffled and walked back to the end of the room, turning off the lights one by one before heading back into the hallway.
Eddie and Malcolm were relieved, a rush of adrenaline pulsed through their bodies, translating into soft laughs and wide grins. They were just short of giggling like school girls and high-fiving each other. It took them a few moments to realize that Darren wasn’t joining in, took them some time to see that their friend, hiding underneath the desk and staring in horror at the slumped man above him, wasn’t laughing or smiling.
Darren had thought he was going to get caught. He knew that if they turned the lights on, the security guard would open his eyes and see him. It didn’t occur to him until it was too late, but Darren could see the guard’s face, albeit dark, which meant the guard would be able to see his. When the lights had snapped on and his face had been illuminated, Darren realized that the guard wouldn’t be able to see him, because he was never waking up.
The guard was in his late sixties, maybe younger, but his pallid expression belied his true age. His face was white and decaying into a subtle shade of blue. His eyes were wide, glassy and staring upwards, into the low ceiling of his office and the abyss beyond. A thin red line traced over his neck where his throat had been slit, the blood had congealed and clogged on his skin like tomato sauce around the lips of the bottle.
Darren felt his breath catch in his throat. He realized that the substance he had crawled through, the one that now coated his hands and his legs, wasn’t coffee, tea, or even urine. It was blood. Cold, sticky, congealed blood. He felt sick, he didn’t know if he wanted to pass out or throw up. He tried to do the latter, gagging a few times, but there was nothing inside his stomach; his body refused to let him release, to let him feel relief.
17
The three teenagers fell silent with only the sound of their heavy breathing penetrating the blackness. After the sudden display of light and the rapid descent back into darkness, their eyes were beginning to adjust again. They could see each other’s faces. They could see the horrified expressions that were developing.
“Dead?” Malcolm asked after a while, feeling like something was stuck in his throat. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I fucking sure?” Darren rasped. “D’you think I don’t know what a dead person looks like?”
Malcolm frowned at this friend, his expression hidden by the blanket of gray. “Have you seen many dead people before?”
Darren shifted uncomfortably. “Well, no, of course not.”
“So—”
“He’s dead, alright?”
Silence fell over them as they all contemplated their next move and shot curious glances at the dark form of the slouched guard above them. Eventually the silence was broken by Eddie who mumbled in frustration and crawled out from underneath the desk, before quickly getting to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Darren asked, remaining where he was, fearful to move an inch, scared to move past the dead man in case he reached out from beyond the grave.
“I tell you what I ain’t doing,” Eddie said, fumbling in his pockets. “I ain’t sitting in the dark under a fucking desk like some numpty.” He pulled out a Zippo lighter and flicked the top. With a trembling hand he took a few steps towards the guard, stretched out his arm, and then struck the lighter.
The spark ignited the room and they all caught a glimpse of that pallid, horrified expression, but the lighter didn’t ignite and the image vanished as quickly as it appeared. They waited in the darkness with Eddie still holding the lighter in his o
utstretched arm.
“Did you see that?” Darren whispered.
Malcolm nodded, unwilling to open his mouth.
Eddie tried again. Another spark, another flash, and another sighting before the darkness returned as quickly as it had departed.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Darren said.
Malcolm didn’t respond, but he knew where his friend was coming from.
Eddie struck the lighter again, this time the flame caught and the room stayed lit. They saw the guard in all his deathly glory; his lifeless face and the mass of blood that had coated his torso and dripped to the floor.
“Holy fucking shit,” Malcolm hissed softly. He climbed out from underneath the desk, kept his distance from the guard as Eddie remained close, seemingly very interested in the rigid corpse.
“Who do you think did this?” Eddie wondered aloud.
Malcolm had no answer for that, he didn’t know who had done it and didn’t know who was capable of doing such a thing. It looked like the killer had snuck up behind the guard and slit his throat. There were no signs of a struggle, no signs that the guard had even seen his killer.
Eddie turned the flame towards Darren as he slowly and sluggishly emerged from underneath the desk, inches from the guard’s limp and bloodstained legs.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Eddie asked, noting the blood covering Darren’s legs and arms.
Darren allowed himself to acknowledge the blood and felt another wave of desperate nausea. The coppery scent was overwhelming, but the sickly smears of drying crimson that coated his clothes and his flesh was worse. He hated blood, he typically only hated it when it was his own and was proud of his indifference when it was someone else’s—gory films or televised operations had no effect on him—but this was worse than his own, yet it clung to him as if it wanted to be a part of him.
When Darren looked up, through the flame and beyond the pale features of the guard, he saw that Eddie had a smirk on his face. That smirk angered his blood and activated a bitter part of him that ignited as fast as the flame had.
