Spotting a gap in the traffic, Roger dashed across to the opposite pavement, quickly walking towards the new apartment block. He stopped at the entrance, looking at the array of buzzers and mail-boxes, as a soft ‘thunk’ invited him to enter and he gingerly pushed at the door, mildily surprised, but for some intuitive reason not shocked, as it opened easily under the gentle pressure applied.
Roger stepped through into the communal hallway and looked around. The space seemed familiar to him, despite the fact that he had never even seen the building before yesterday, let alone set foot inside it. The smell, the sounds of his footsteps on the varnished floorboards, the pictures on the wall, the staircase – all felt known to him; more than that – all felt part of him. He sensed his destination and ascended the stairs, turning at the top towards the apartment with its front door slightly open.
His bowels rippled with the force of the building’s extended invitation, but also with a mix of excited fear. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the sensations but he was reminded of playing hide and seek as a young child. As a kid, Roger loved to go upstairs and hide – particularly during the winter evenings when the house was dark – his father slowly creeping up the stairs, groaning and growling like some kind of monster. Roger would be secreted inside a wardrobe or under a bed, the anticipation of being found by ‘the monster’ almost causing him to wet himself with excitement. More often than not, he would jump out from his hiding place before his father had even got close to him, the butterflies in his belly and bladder too overwhelming for comfort. He had that feeling once more as he carefully pushed the door and stepped through.
The apartment was silent. As he stood still, listening for any slight sounds of life, the smell hit his nostrils. His experiences over the last few days left him in no doubt as to what the pungent odour was – blood.
He took a deep sniff of the air – the coppery scent seemed to be coming from the partly opened door to his left. Roger cautiously stepped through into the dining room. The door on the left led to the kitchen and was open, the room beyond looking clean and fresh. To his right, a closed door set his bowels squirming once again and he knew this door would lead to his reason for being here. As he wrapped his fingers around the handle the door flew open, the force dragging him forwards, stumbling into the bedroom.
Before he had even had a chance to take in the scene in front of him, Roger felt the confusion of butterflies in his belly turn to ice, their frozen metaphorical bodies lying heavy in his gut. The chill in his core quickly crept through his entire body, the warm embers of the earlier invitation now cold and black, some instinct deep inside telling him he’d been tricked.
On the floor before him lay the body of the sales woman, puncture wounds clearly visible on her blood stained chest. On the bed slumped the naked body of a man, similar wounds afflicting his neck, a gore soaked pillow between his limp thighs, the wall behind him criss-crossed with cracks.
Something’s wrong here…
Not wrong in the sense that the room had two dead bodies in it…something else…
Blood! Where was all the blood?
The apartment had reeked of it when he had entered and the wounds in the bodies indicated that several pints should be sloshing around somewhere. Ok, the body on the bed may have bled out into the sheets and mattress, but the woman on the floor should have been lying in a pool of the stuff, but, apart from the drying stains on her blouse, there was nothing.
As he pondered the conundrum his eye was suddenly drawn to movement on the opposite side of the bedroom. A woman, her clothes spattered with red, was pinned to the wall by…
Was that electrical flex?
Her eyes widened as they made contact with his, desperation evident in her face.
“Help me, pl-“
Her cry was cut short as the cable around her throat contracted, choking off her words, her blue eyes bulging in their sockets as the grey flex continued to tighten for a few seconds more before slowly slackening back off, the woman gasping loudly for breath.
Roger stood rooted to the spot, his brain unable to fathom what he should do first.
Rescue the pinned woman?
Check the bodies for any signs of life?
Go and get help?
He opted for the third choice, turning towards the exit. Before he could even put one foot in front of the other, the door slammed into place, cutting of his escape. A cracking sound above his head forced him to look up. The light fitting swung wildly for a second then crashed to the floor, the electrical cable it had been suspended from ripping across the artexed ceiling before diving toward him, wrapping itself around his neck like a noose. The cable continued tearing across the ceiling, clouds of white painted dust falling in its wake as it lifted Roger to his tip-toes, throttling the breath, along with any fight from his body before slamming him back against the wall. The light switch in the wall beside him fell to the floor as the cables it was wired to broke free, bursting from the exposed metal socket. The flex danced in front of Roger’s face as the grey outer casing peeled back like an over-ripe banana, the nest of coloured wires within fanning out across his cheeks before burrowing into his skin. He could feel them crawling through his flesh like parasites, inching their way towards his eyes. He screamed as
