by B Branin
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I waited down the hall, peeking around the corner and watching the young security guard open up my office door. Thanks to a foundation built over a lifetime of misdeeds, bad choices and a total absence of moral fiber, I didn’t feel the least bit ashamed as I watched Youngster turn the door handle and step into my office and possibly his own death. Holding my breath, I waited. For what, I wasn’t sure. Another junkie’s battle cry as he attacked? A scream of agony from Youngster thanks to some devious trap? I even braced myself for the floor to shake as a bomb went off, triggered by someone entering my office.
Explosives were a private fear of mine. I had spent a summer in Ireland following in the footsteps of a good friend Mack McDougal and together we had perfected the art of being drunk off our asses. Unfortunately one of the bars we had broken into (with the intention of liberating hundreds of dollars worth of whiskey) had been marked to blow by the younger, more violent IRA members. Four petrol-bombs in a six foot by six foot basement full of flammable alcohol caught me and Mack by surprise.
The only reason I survived was because Mack’s beefy body had shielded me from the harshest of the flames and shrapnel-like splinters. Needless to say having a two hundred pound Irishman’s corpse landing on you was an experience you never got over. The ordeal had successfully implanted a phobia of explosives deep in my psyche, which explained why my palms were so sweaty at the moment.
Thankfully there was no explosion and Youngster stepped out of my office in one piece. Deciding it was safe, I rounded the corner and headed towards him. I thanked the young security guard and told him if he didn’t see me leave in the next half hour, to please come back up to my office as I might have tripped over something. I neglected to mention the fact that if I didn’t leave the office in half an hour, there was a good chance some cultist had leapt out of the closet and stabbed me in the back.
The young security guard agreed and hastily excused himself, apparently wanting to get as far away from me as possible before I saw the damage done to my office. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the most expensive item I had inside my workplace was a twelve year old bottle of scotch I’d been saving for a special occasion (like impressing a classy lady or getting a pair of promiscuous twins drunk).Oh wait…I had already drained that bottle so there was nothing worth saving in my office.
Lucky me.
With one hand in my pocket ready to draw my switchblade at a moment’s notice, I stepped into my office and hit the lights with my free hand. What waited inside could only be described as designer bedlam. Piles of trash still littered the floor…and the walls, and some of it even stuck to the ceiling. Chunks of plaster had been torn from the walls, letting wires and cables from the ventilation system sag inside. Entire ceiling tiles were missing and a lead pipe peeked through the flooring from where the floorboards had been busted up.
Such destruction being wrought so quickly and quietly was disturbing. My mind refused to believe that such a thorough desecration could have gone unnoticed and I began to think that the old security guard might be in on it. After all even if a single person could slip into my office unseen, how the hell could one person cause so much damage?! It was mindboggling!
First thing I did after stepping inside my office was check behind the door for some menacing figure but discovered none. Then I headed over to the small broom closet on the far side of the room. Drawing my switchblade, I used the utmost caution as I threw open the closet door, fully expecting to find some face-painted cultist laying in wait.
The inside of the closet was empty…even of a floor.
Staring down at the gaping hole where carpet and flooring had once been, I saw nothing but darkness. Where the closet’s bottom now resided was a mystery I was too sober to deal with at the moment. Shutting the door, I shook my head and turned to the greatest monument of décor desecration: My desk.
The thick desk which I had brought to the office from my apartment had been a good companion. It had served as a place to pretend to work as well as a bunk to sleep on when I was too drunk to make it home…it had even provided a sturdy surface for the time me and an attorney’s secretary had gotten wildly intimate. But the desk was no more, broken beyond repair. It had been snapped completely in half, sagging inward to make a rough V shape.
Upon further inspection, I couldn’t see any cut marks or indents that suggested bashing or hacking. It was almost as if some giant had waltzed up to the heavy piece of furniture and snapped it like a wishbone. Whatever unexplainable force had struck my desk, it fouled the very air with a sense of wrongness on a basic level. Logic screamed at me that such destruction was inhuman and that no mere vandal could have done this.
Hell, this level of destruction would have even left the Twins stunned…and possibly jealous.
I figured that I might as well complete the sweep of my destroyed office, almost in a daze at the thoroughness of the ruin. I checked the windows (broken), circled my filing cabinets (crushed like old beer cans) and eventually made my way to the small bathroom. The door to the restroom had been ripped clean from its hinges, taking a good chunk of the wall with it. After seeing the state of my desk, the unhinged door didn’t impress me.
The bathroom was tiny, consisting only of a sink and toilet. Much to my surprise, there was no damage done to the lavatory other than the door being misplaced and the general lack of cleanliness (which was my fault). The tiles were undamaged, the walls were free of holes and both the sink and toilet were still where they were supposed to be. No pipes had been ripped up, no wires hanging from the ceiling…nothing. It was strange, the normalcy of it drawing me in. A smug sense of satisfaction raced through me because I took this as a sign of whoever these vandals were, even they had their limitations.
After stepping inside the unscathed restroom I heard the drip drip drip sound. Glancing over to the sink, I saw an annoyingly steady leak coming from the faucet. Lost in thought about where I could begin searching for clues I absentmindedly gave the faucet handle a twist…the tap vomited steaming hot water in response. Giving the handles a few experimental turns, I concluded that the sink was broken as more hot water gushed forth. With several pipes having been ripped through my office floorboards, it was well within the realm of possibility that the water lines had been a casualty in this mess.
Glum that every area of my office was a wreck and finding a link to the Daughters of All was going to be all but impossible, I was about to leave when something caught my eye. Scratched into the mirror was a crudely drawn arrow pointing up, made more noticeable thanks to the steam coming from the sink. Dumbly, I looked straight up and was alarmed at what I found.
Painted on the ceiling directly above me was a design of the likes I’d never seen before…in fact, I doubt anyone in their right mind had ever seen anything like it. Taking up an entire ceiling tile was a crimson circle and inside the circle was a chaotic jumble of symbols, some so small I had to squint to see them while others were the size of my fist. Despite the appearance of being haphazardly thrown inside the bordering circle, these symbols did appear to have some sort of unity…almost like they were interwoven threads.
Just looking at the symbols made my eyes tingle as if it were some sort of optical illusion. I blinked several times but the strange ache in my eyes persisted. Steam was beginning to fill the bathroom as more and more hot water ran from the tap. My mind was still trying to comprehend how much time it must have taken to draw something so detailed when I noticed that tendrils of steam were gently beginning to lap at the symbols, making the paint run.
A red droplet fell from the design and landed on my cheek, just under my eye.
Over the indefinable scent of hot water on a ceramic sink, the smell of iron teased my nose. I reached up and wiped the paint blotch off my cheek and rolled the substance between my finger and thumb. Alarm and disgust struck in equal measure as I identified the substance.
After all, there was nothing quite like the texture of blood.
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I moved out from under the blood-drawn design, sickened. The steam was making the bloody symbols drip, raining a crimson mess on the floor tiles. It wasn’t until the circle surrounding the symbols began to leak when things got really weird. A faint tremor that rattled the entire floor the moment the circle became incomplete. With a mind that was already sluggish with confusion over a painting of blood being placed in my office, I didn’t even register the disturbance until the second time around.
The second tremor forced me to lean against the wall for support.
The ceiling tile that had been the canvas for the bloody artwork fell during this second quake, landing with a wet thud onto the floor. I looked down at the mess and discovered that many of the bathroom tiles had been cracked and shattered, a testament to how strong the tremor had been. But I didn’t hear any panic coming from the other offices, which meant that the tremors couldn’t have been too bad…
“Honest to God,” I muttered, turning to leave, “As if my life wasn’t getting weird enough…”
That’s when I heard it. A tiny sound, almost like a chirp from a small bird. This was followed by a series of clinks!
Turning back around, I stared down at the floor and discovered the source of the odd noises. Several of the cracked ceramic tiles were now standing straight up as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Each tile standing at attention had streaks or smears of red on them, stained by the blood from the bizarre design.
I blinked and nearly missed seeing another tile flip upward as if it were spring loaded. After a complete spin the air, the tile landed on one corner, staying in that position as if it were glued there. My jaw went slack as I stared at the tiles, no amount description could properly articulate my shock. It was one of those moments where your mind was arguing with your eyes, trying to confirm that you truly saw what you thought you saw.
What broke the staring contest between me and the erect tiles was my sixth sense for trouble. A cold chill ran up my spine, leaving my scalp itching and my paranoia flaring. My limit for weirdness had peaked so I began backing out the door slowly, as if the tiles were a pack of rabid dogs and any sudden movement would set them off. Stepping out of the bathroom, I tripped over a shredded piece of carpet and fell hard on my ass.
That act of clumsiness saved my life.
Nearly faster than the eye could follow, several of the tiles launched themselves into the air, soaring overhead like miniature buzz saws. They collided into the far wall with such force they either shattered upon impact or sunk deep into the plaster. To this day I cringe to think of what would’ve happened if I hadn’t of tripped…best case scenario was a clean decapitation.
More ceramic tiles ripped themselves free from the floor, whirling like saw blades as they took flight. Despite the spinning ceramic squares of death beginning to soar about my office, I felt…well nothing. I was too damned shocked to even process the thought of bodily harm. In the face of something so bizarre and strange my mind became a blank slate as it tried to comprehend what was happening.
The shock and awe didn’t last long.
The flying tiles stopped their orbit of my office, converging on a single spot and nearly scrapping the ceiling as they did so. They formed a large square, roughly two feet in width, black and white tiles alternating to make something that roughly resembled a face. The amazement, disbelief and down right shock I was experiencing began ebbing away into something else…not exactly fear but more of a cautious curiosity.
“My kingdom for a camera,” I muttered as I stood up slowly, still weary of making any sudden movements.
I was promptly knocked back on my ass as the trash under my feet was pulled out from underneath me by some unseen force. Landing hard on my back, I groaned while an old pizza box, a wire hanger and a section of carpet began soaring through the air and positioned themselves underneath the tiles.
While gravity lost it’s sway on more and more objects in my office, a frantic clink-clink-clink! began ringing out. I looked over and saw the pipe in the corner of the room shaking from side to side, striking the wall hard enough to sheer off chips of plaster. After some valiant struggling, the pipe managed to free itself from the broken floorboards and joined the other levitating objects as I lay on the ground, mouth agape and eyes wide.
You may think that ravenous monsters with gnarled claws, blood-wet fangs, and piss-yellow eyes are terrifying. And they are, believe me but nothing has come close to scaring me as badly as what stood in my office at that moment.
The levitating junk began moving closer and closer together, compacting itself into a roughly humanoid shape. The tiles served as the thing’s head while pieces of carpet, floorboards and drywall served as its neck and chest. A multitude of trash fleshed the thing out, creating a detailed torso that included ribs made out of the metal framework of my desk. The assembled trash-thing’s legs were a condensed mass of trash like paper towels, packing peanuts, beer cans and old Chinese takeout cartons. Its right arm was the thick pipe from the floor, jammed into a “shoulder area” of plastic bags. Its left arm was an origami nightmare of magazines I had kept in the top drawer of my desk (most of them featuring fantasy women in various states of undress) ending in a shredded phonebook shaped like a crab’s claw.
This is the part where I’d like to tell you I woke up and this trash-thing was nothing but the result of a bad booze induced nightmare. Unfortunately I wasn’t dreaming. How did I know? Well first off, there weren’t oiled women dancing all around me. Secondly, the creature’s claw reached down and grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me to my feet. The papery appendage was stronger than the arms of any bouncer or thug whose roughed me up before.
With a shout of alarm, I was sent sailing through the air as the trash-thing hurled me like a rag doll. I slammed into the wall, bouncing off it and into a graceful face plant of a landing. The bizarre...thing…snapped its claw open and shut eagerly. The humanoid junk sculpture was so large that it knocked out one of the few remaining light fixtures on the ceiling as it turned its ceramic tile head to pursue me.
Scrambling to my feet, I tried to get my mind to switch from dumfounded disbelief to survival mode. The pain of landing from my short-lived flight had been great enough to get me to focus on the important things. Namely escape. Pain was all the jumpstart my survival instincts needed. It no longer mattered that I was being attacked by something that looked like it had been spat up from a dumpster. My only concern now was the fact I was being attacked and how I needed to remedy that.
Whatever the trash-thing was, it possessed some sort of intellect or at least a malevolence instinct. It had thrown me over the remains of my desk at the end of the office and now stood between me and the only exit. Of course I could have leapt out of a window but a four story fall wasn’t my idea of a safe exit. If I wanted to avoid any further harm, I needed to think of an escape strategy and fast.
It was strange but my logic-wired mind tried to assure me that something of this size couldn’t move that fast. Yeah stupid I know. It was rather embarrassing trying to apply logic to a creature that shouldn’t exist on the grounds that it was nothing but unified garbage. But I knew the thing was strong so I hoped the damn thing had sacrificed speed for strength.
Armed with the poor assumption that the trash-thing would be slow, I made a break for it. Hugging the wall closely, I tried to run around the monster to get the door and hopefully freedom. In hindsight that was a bad move considering I ran along it’s right arm, which happened to be a lead fucking pipe. Swinging its lead limb, the trash-thing caught me in the shoulder with the bulbous end of the pipe.
Pain exploded through my entire side as I was smashed against the wall yet again. There was no respite as I was struck again across the back, cracking at least one rib and forcing me to my knees. I was no stranger to pain and luckily my threshold for it wasn’t quite reached as adrenaline flooded through my body to help battle the agony.
As my Uncle used to say, “Pain can’t kill
ya but it can get ya killed.”
Foolishly thinking I could fight through the pain and continue my escape, I got to my feet and continued onward. Cursing all the while, I half-limped, half-sprinted towards the door. The trash-thing was determined to keep me from the exit and given its massive size that was going to be an easy task. The tiles of its head began clinking together madly and to this day I believe the damn thing was mocking me.
The impossibly strong paper claw shot out once more, catching me around the waist. Page after page slapped across my body, wrapping up my torso like I was some sort of gift. Hurt flooded through my body as my feet left the carpet and all my bodyweight became supported by the trash-thing’s appendage. As I was hefted into the air, I noticed that the size of its left arm had narrowed, becoming thinner and more condensed. I suppose that made some sort of strange sense because the majority of the pages that created said arm were wrapped around my gut.
Funny what the mind picks up when bombarded with weirdness.
Like a careless child with a new toy, the trash-thing lifted me up higher until my skull slammed into one of the ceiling tiles. Thankfully the tiles were a cheap and relatively soft cardboard-like material and couldn’t take much abuse and dish out even less. My assailant apparently understood this and compensated by driving its pipe arm into my torso. As most of my breath left me in a groan, my tear-blurred vision focused on the trash-thing and the unreal situation I found myself in. Even as my body throbbed with pain I had a tiny sliver of hope that I would wake up from this nightmare.
The pipe struck me again, this time in the leg that caused a fresh wave of agony to surge through me and end all hopes that this was some sort of hallucination.
More of an act of defiance than anything, I started tearing at the magazine pages around my torso that trapped me in the trash-thing’s grip. Wherever my fingernails found purchase I started shredding. It was so strange. Though the magazine pages making up this monster’s arm possessed enough strength to heave me off my feet, they seemed nothing more than glossy paper as I tore at them. They shredded, tore and crumbled just as easily as any other piece of paper. It was as if some laws of nature and physics were inescapable.
My retaliation didn’t go unnoticed. The tile head of the trash-thing stopped it’s clattering, which I interpreted as annoyance. The pipe arm of the monster was pulled back like the fist of a boxer preparing for a haymaker punch. It swung but this time I was ready for it…or as ready as I could be in this situation. The club-like end of the pipe was supposed to connect with the side of my head but I raised my arm and blocked it.
I screamed as the lead pipe connected, hitting my upper arm so hard I swore my bones vibrated. It was a painful maneuver but well worth it considering I was still alive. Having saved my skull from being cracked like an egg, I grabbed the pipe with both hands and tugged with all of my might…which was completely unnecessary because the pipe was pulled free from the trash-thing’s body easily enough.
Having ripped the pipe from its mysterious host, I suddenly found myself armed (no pun intended) and in a better position to defend myself. I didn’t waste another second and attacked. Though the pipe was long, heavy and unwieldy, it served its purpose. Ignoring the aches my abused body was afflicted with, I began swinging madly at the bulk of the trash-thing with every ounce of strength I could muster.
The head of the pipe tore into the trash-thing’s body which offered a pathetic amount of resistance. Each blow tore old garbage like blackened banana peels, Styrofoam cups and soiled napkins from the monster’s bulk and sent them spilling across the floor. Gratefully the garbage that was torn from the trash-thing’s body didn’t reanimate itself and repair the damage I inflicted.
Apparently as soon as the animated objects left the monster’s body, they returned to being nothing more than bits and pieces of garbage. I didn’t comprehend why there was such a limitation to whatever force gave life (if this thing was truly alive) to the monstrosity but I did understand that it could be used to my advantage…if I lived long enough to press that advantage.
After being struck several times, the trash-thing grew even angrier with me. It began to spin around in a circle, slamming me against the ceiling, the wall and even the floor as its origami-like arm stretched and retracted like a Chinese finger trap. Despite being bruised again and again from the collisions I was forced to endure, I refused to let go of the pipe and continued taking jabs and swings at the damn monster.
I finally scored a major hit when I struck one of tiles that served as its head, shattering the blood stained ceramic and scattering it across the office. The effect of my attack was better than I had hoped for (then again my pessimistic nature had lowered my hopes exponentially). The trash-thing suddenly teetered on its strange legs drunkenly and the pressure around my torso loosening as its grip became weaker.
Ha! I had found a weak spot. Twisting my body the best I could to gain all the momentum possible, I aimed for the next tile. Following through on my attack became impossible since the trash-thing finally let me go…by hurling me across the room as easily as someone may discard a candy wrapper.
Though I had spent enough time in the air today to get frequent flyer miles, this time I couldn’t bring myself to complain. Mostly because I was hurled in the direction of the exit. As soon as I hit the carpet, I rolled and slammed into the office door. A lucky break if you could call it that. Despite being dizzy from rolling along the carpet like a bowling ball, I reached up and twisted the doorknob while scrambling to my feet. In such a rush to escape, I lost my footing as the door opened up and I tumbled out into the hallway.
On my back, bloody and bruised, I forced myself to sit up and stare into my office. The trash-thing was facing me once again, the disorientation I had inflicted upon it by shattering the tile seemed to have worn off. It took a menacing step forward, then another and another until it was charging towards me like a wastebasket humanoid stampede.
I tried to force myself into motion but my abused body wouldn’t respond. Racked with too much pain to do much more than stare at the oncoming monster, I waited for the end. What a gyp! I’ve escaped hit men, mobsters, thugs and a variety of other ne’er-do-wells all my life and this is how it ends? Crushed to death by a sentient mess? I certainly hadn’t seen this coming. I always figured I’d die in the arms of a lover…after her husband caught us together.
The trash-thing was at the door now, running faster than anything that size had a right to. I was morbidly curious how this monster was going to snuff me out. Crush me? Strangle me? Rip me in two? Whatever method of murder it was going to use, I hoped it would be painless. Resigning to my fate, I gritted my teeth and waited for the end…thankfully, it never came.
The powers at be weren’t ready to let me die just yet.
The trash-thing exploded out of my office… and I do mean literally exploded out of my office. The second the trash-thing set foot out in the hallway, its body lost its form. Quite violently. A shower of garbage and trash went in every direction. An apple core knocked out a ceiling light, empty beer bottles shattered against the walls while greasy muck stained the hallway carpet. A blood stained tile whizzed past my ear so fast I felt a breeze.
Then it was over.
I sat there, stunned and covered in garbage for a few moments. My mind was desperately trying to comprehend what had just happened. Slowly, I became aware of eyes upon me. Looking to my left, I saw a man in a business suit peeking out of his own office several doors down, a blank expression on his face. I craned my neck to the right and spotted a woman by the drinking fountains staring at me as if I had just grown three extra arms.
“I tell you what,” I said loudly, casually getting to my feet and brushing the worst bits of garbage from my clothes, “Next time those maids offer to clean you’re office, take them up on it!”
With that I turned tail and ran, hoping to get as far from my office as possible.
