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Blackout at Cherry Estates:  Part IV

Pat slowly withdrew his hand from the impossibility that had drawn itself over the threshold like a curtain.  He held his fingers up to himself tentatively, as though he were apprehensive they would fall off or sprout tendrils or something.  But nothing happened.

It was Catherine, rocking back on forth on the floor, who broke the silence first.  "Are we in Hell?"

Pat seemed to seriously consider her query.  "I don't think so.  We'd remember dying.  Wouldn't we?"

Catherine cupped her hands over her mouth and let out a strangled sob.  Michael, her boyfriend, knelt beside her and took her in his arms, though it seemed he was deriving more comfort from her than the other way round.

Pat paced away from the door carefully.  "Anyway, I don't think Hell would look like my workplace."  He chuckled bitterly, then winced.  He touched his head gingerly, where the cuts from Mrs. Watts' nails still were weeping blood.  "And it feels too real to be a dream."

Ashley nodded stupidly.  Her hand ached from where Mrs. Watts had bit her.  The old lady was out cold face-first on the floor, her back rising and falling with labored breaths.  Ashley regarded her nervously and went to stand by Pat.  "This is insane," she whispered to him.

"Yeah."  The maintenance man sniffed.

"You don't seem the least bit concerned."

Pat laughed.  "Of course I am.  Just...don't really know how I should react, I guess."

Ashley looked back at Mrs. Watts.  Pat had dealt her quite a vicious blow.  Ashley didn't exactly feel sorry for the old woman - it was hard to feel sympathy for anything that had tried to bite your hand off - but all the same...

"We have to get out of here," Ashley said.  "We need to get help.  God only knows what's going on upstairs."

Pat blinked.  "What makes you say that?"

"She didn't just crack on her own, Pat.  Something...something really, really wrong is going on here.  I'm not just talking about whatever the hell's going on with the front door.  I've had this headache, Pat.  Ever since that loud bang."

"The young couple, hitting Tommy Salinger's car in the parking lot."

"Right."

"Just stress."

"Oh shut the fuck up, Pat," Ashley sighed in exasperation.  "I'm telling you, this pain isn't normal.  Can't you feel it?  Whatever's happening here, it's affecting all of us.  Mrs. Watts must've caught the worst of it.  She might not be the only one."

Pat scowled.  "Ashley, I think you need to lie down."

"Don't patronize me."

"I'm not!  I just-"  Pat folded his hands in front of him and exhaled noisily.  "Look, I don't get this any more than you do.  But you can't tell me people are going crazy left right and centre.  These young folks, they're just reacting like anyone else would to something like this.  And you, I think you're stressed, and for damn good reason."

"What about the door?"

"Forget the door!"  Pat snapped.  "Sorry.  Just...ok.  So let's talk about getting out of here.  Suppose we get the emergency radio I keep in the furnace room?"

Ashley looked irritated, but she nodded.  "All right."  She padded over to Michael and Catherine.  "Guys.  Listen.  We have an emergency radio in the building.  We can call for help."

The couple stared back, uncomprehending.

Ashley stuck out her jaw, then squatted down in front of them.  "Ok.  Look.  We need to move.  Can you both do that for me?  Please?"

Slowly, the two helped each other to their feet.  Catherine shuddered as she looked over at Mrs. Watts.  "What about her?"

Ashley exchanged a look with Pat and bit her lip.  "Well, we can't just leave her here."

"So what do we do?"  Michael asked.

Ashley cast about the room.  "Pat, take off your belt."

The caretaker comprehended her intention immediately.  He shucked off his belt and handed it to Ashley.  Ashley waved Michael over.  "Give me a hand with her wrists."

"Are you serious?"

"We can't just leave her like this.  She's dangerous.  Now give me a hand.  Pat, shine your flashlight over here so I can see."

Michael looked prepared to argue, but he relented and held Mrs. Watts' hands in place while Ashley looped them together with Pat's belt.  Ashley pointed at Michael's waist.  "Now yours."

"What for?"

"Legs too."

Michael muttered in passive disagreement as he tugged off his belt.  A few moments later, Mrs. Watts was securely restrained like the very worst kind of kink fantasy.

"Okay," Ashley said.  "Let's get going."

*  *  *  *

I'm dead. 

Monica Ellis was focusing on those two words.  They felt more comforting than any possible alternative.  Yet she kept coming back, kept arriving at that pretentious, horrendous, conclusion:  I think, therefore I am.

I'm not dead.

So where was she?  Ever since the goddamn apartment hallway had turned into some kind of insane negative-space nightmare, she'd refused to open her eyes.  Around her, she could hear...nothing.  No hum of electric lights, no passing traffic, no background noise whatsoever.  She couldn't stay put forever.

She opened her eyes, slowly.

Monica was in an apartment.  Not her own.  Hers lacked the victorian style dressers, the oak writing desk, the posters of Salvador Dali.  Her apartment also lacked the carved eldritch symbols, hacked into surfaces haphazardly and inked in with blood.

She closed her eyes and whimpered.

Alone.

That thought was not her own.  Monica opened her eyes again.  The apartment remained, but this time she thought she caught a glimpse of a body, tilted back at an unnatural angle in a chair in the center of the room.  A man.  She might have been able to recognize him if his jaw hadn't been blown out through the back of his head.  A shotgun lay nearby.

Monica felt her stomach lurch, and she tilted herself to the side and vomited, her lunch mingling over the bizarre symbols carved into the floor beneath her.

Waiting / Playing

Monica flinched as if struck.  "Is someone there?"

Lonely / Arriving / Penetrating / Seeking

Monica struggled to her feet.  "What's going on?"

You have come yes yes we/me will be merry chums together and I/we yes will come to your playpen yes

That, Monica decided, was quite enough of that.  She vaulted over the body and found the door (how did she get so far from it in the first place?).  The handle wouldn't turn.  She pounded her hands on the wood and screamed desperately.

Hush now you are a dizzy dweller yes in the smooth place I/we need/desire a capsule so yes hush now yes

Monica beat her fists into purple bruised lumps and sobbed.  Through her tears, she could only watch as a black mass spread over her palms, up her arms, and when she blinked again it was through eyes no longer her own.


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