B (5:41)
But then I realized it was coming from the echoing stairwell. From across the hallway. A long carpeted hallway, the kind you'd expect to see creepy twins at the end of asking you to play with them as an elevator opens up behind them to spill blood all over the carpet. Since the building's new, it fortunately doesn't have the usual creepy blinking light nobody ever bothered to fix, but it does have its own more modern creepiness. Motion activated lighting. That was the weird part, though. The motion activated lighting should have kept the halls and stairwell dim until someone moved through it. But the stairwell remained pitch black, which was impossible. It was never perfectly dark. Safety reasons, you know. But then. But I couldn't see a thing in that black box behind the door. All I could do was hear her. Her desperate gasping screams and the sound of stumbling footsteps. Then she broke out of the darkness. Laura. Her light hair covered in blood, gashes all over her arms. She saw me looking out my door and took off at a dead sprint toward me. And right behind her, breaking from the darkness, grabbing at the place she had just been, was a hulking figure. No, not a figure. A mass. A mass of stretched gray skin. Human skin, but from someone long dead, stretched so thin you could see something rotting and roiling beneath, but somehow keeping its shape, keeping itself together. A flimsy flesh sack dragging itself across the floor. I caught Laura when she all but crashed into me, dragging her into my room and locking my door. A nice solid deadbolt that I suspected wouldn't stand against whatever this thing was. But it gave me enough time to grab what I could. Salt, spices, vinegar, candles, and whatever religious iconography I could grab from my little altar near the door. Then. Then the knocking started. Well, I say knocking, but it'd be more accurate to say it was throwing itself against the door. Laura kept screaming. I don't think she could stop if she wanted to, but at some point, just as I'd blocked out the incessant false fire alarms in the first month of living here, I was able to tune her out, focusing only on the heavy, dull thudding against my solid wood door. Then after one sharper crack, right where the deadbolt held, that startled us both. In silence, it stopped. I thought maybe that was the end of it, I hoped. And then it started flowing under the door, like whatever it was had begun to melt. Not completely. You know, when this thin film forms over chicken fat that breaks right apart when you poke into it? That's what it reminded me of. A filmy, slick liquid going between the cracks and reforming right in front of us. I didn't wait for it to come back up before I started throwing the salt. It didn't stop it, but it certainly had a reaction where it touched. The skin sac started to bubble and you could smell the scent of deep rot. Then I threw the spices and the skin began to smoke. It roiled and twisted. It seemed startled, almost like it didn't expect someone to start fighting back. Especially not like this. Not with folk magic and intent. It really didn't. Like when I grasped the anting anting around my neck and started a bulong, whispering my prayers. Prayers to a belief that holds the minds and hearts of billions, and prayers to an older, kinder ear that still cares for its people. It hadn't yet fully reformed when it melted again, this time seeming to disappear into the floor, no longer as solid as it was. The smell that was so strong and cloying dissipated, and soon it was gone. Not destroyed, gone. Laura called 911 and I stayed with her until they arrived, made sure her wounds were as clean as they could be. Though she started screaming again when I walked over to the sink to get some water. Had to use some bottled. And then I used my first aid training to disinfect the wounds and wrap her arms in gauze. She didn't protest when I started a bolong over them, lit a candle, melted the wax over a bowl of water, looked over it with a critical eye to see if she had anything else wrong. With her if that rot had set into her skin. Police came and checked the building for any wild animal or intruder and they, alongside her compunctious concierge, guided me and Laura out of the building to the paramedics. Laura begged me not to leave her alone. She seemed to think I was the only reason the monster hadn't come back, and they couldn't get her into the ambulance while she was clinging to me. So I rode in the back of the ambulance with her. They said I did a good job with her arms, but when we got to the hospital she needed more than a few stitches anyway. She didn't let me go until she was sedated and I gave my statement in the waiting room. I knew how this worked, so I told them I saw her running and bleeding and got her into my room. But I hadn't seen who or what was chasing her and it'd stopped trying to get into my room after a while since I'd locked the door. I wasn't sure what they'd find in the cctv. I wasn't sure if they'd see the pitch black stairwell or the thing made of skin and rot. What I was sure of was that Laura hadn't been infected by it, as far as I could tell with my tawas, presuming I could know the nature of it with old Filipina candle scrying. Anyway, maybe I just couldn't see what it was. Maybe it was already inside her and nothing I did would change that. But when I got a call the next day telling me Laura was safe and seemed to be healing nicely, I was hopeful. I was expecting some kind of follow up from the police, and that eventually came in the form of two detectives asking me to come down to the station to give them another statement. The building itself was an architectural marvel, all sharp and asymmetrical edges without feeling cold or unwelcoming. It felt old and new at the same time, in that Toronto way. I'd never seen real actual police detectives outside of tv, so to see them not in uniform but nonetheless wearing light coats and dark colors over office wear made me realize the image of a trenchcoat wearing investigator wasn't too far from the mark. The older one introduced himself as Donner. He didn't look remotely friendly, watching me with narrowed, suspicious eyes, but for all that his resting anger face had me cowed, I didn't feel anything truly hostile coming off him. The opposite, in fact, I thought maybe the wrinkles between his brows and the frown that he wore weighed down by What I guessed were years of practice made him seem older than he was. The younger one seemed his polar opposite. He exuded friendliness, and with his bright eyes and easy smile and exceptionally good looks, he looked more like a supermodel than a policeman. The kind you'd see go viral in a Twitter post. This one introduced himself as Murphy. You know, like that movie with the Robocop? Yeah, that one. I gave him the same spiel. Knew she was chased. Didn't see what chased her, but Donner looked at me like he knew I was lying or leaving something out. Murphy just looked friendly. Looked like they had the good cop, bad cop routine down to a T. 10 out of 10. Execution. Donner asked me then if I knew what lying to the police would get me. I asked if there was any reason I'd lie about protecting someone from an animal or a maniac, especially when I spent most of my night accompanying her to a hospital to make sure she was okay. The two looked at each other, had an entire silent conversation in a matter of seconds with some pointed facial expressions. And it was Murphy that spoke up next, leveling me with a warm but firm expression. Turns out they got exactly what happened from Laura, which either made her look crazy or made me look like a liar. I knew which one was more likely, but I didn't like either option. When I asked what the CCTV showed, they said they just got in the building to release the footage from the day of the attack. I asked then, a bit pointedly, if there was anything else. I was definitely pushing my luck beyond what might have been considered wise if I didn't think Donner's impressive scowl was just for show. He didn't ease up on the look, and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd read him entirely wrong when he gave me a phone number to call if I remembered anything else. Like he knew exactly what I'd lied about. I mean, anyone who looks at me will see a lot of round edges, so malice isn't exactly an aura I let off. But it was still strange for a detective to feel like he knew I was lying and let me go anyway. And for a few days, there was nothing. Laura wasn't moving back until the investigation was done, doing her recovery with her family down in Oakville. The first time she called me was when she wanted to introduce herself properly and she wanted to talk more about what happened, but I held off. I promised I'd talk to her when we were face to face, and she agreed. I'm glad she's safe and far Away from whatever it was that wanted to get her. I tried going down to her room a few times, but it was locked up and under investigation, so I didn't get far. I did try to get a feel of the hallway outside of the door. I felt her fear and the malice and rage of the thing that chased her three flights up. But I didn't get much more than I already knew. There was something else. Something I couldn't quite get the shape of. After my half baked attempts at figuring out what was going on and doing some extensive cleansing and protection rituals over my front door, I had to get back to work. Deadlines, you know. For a while I lost myself in the rhythm of editing until a loud rapping on my door penetrated the thick layer of foam over my ears. I was wary. I remember the last time somebody knocked on my door, but this time I didn't sense any wrongness. And after a look through the peephole, I welcomed Detectives Donner and Murphy into my home. Murphy complimented my little space like his mother probably taught him, and Donner looked at my altar with a critical eye as well as the little paper talismans I stuck to the wood, invoking the names of old gods with little cups of rice on either side of the door. They both accepted when I offered them drinks. A sugary black coffee for Donner and unsweetened but drowned in cream for Murphy. Donner asked me if I could read minds on top of killing monsters, and I told him the truth. The only thing I was better at than guessing how people took their coffee was making instant taste halfway decent. They told me they'd look over the footage and found interference. Video cutting off right when Laura made it to my floor. Donner told me this wasn't surprising, that it was like this with the other ones. He then asked me if I'd tell him the truth this time. Off the record, he had yet to take a single sip of his coffee. I asked him then, how could I tell you about a monster that melted into the floor when I prayed? And have you not think I was crazy? Goner looked me in the eye for what felt like ours. Our eyes were the same color, but couldn't have looked more different. People always told me mine were soft, warm even. His eyes seemed too deep and dark for light to penetrate, so that light reflected in a way that made them flash. The sharpest eyes I'd ever seen. Like they saw as much as I did, even without the generations spent preserving the sight in our bloodline. Eventually, he took a sip from the cooling brew and complimented me on getting it perfect. Turns out the only reason I didn't sound the fool was because I was talking to the two detectives who had dealt with cases similar to this one, ones where everyone involved turned up dead. Laura was their first survivor, and I was the reason why. They grilled me on what I saw, the methods I used, and I tried to answer them as best as I could, but a lot of what I did had been guesswork based, based on past experience that I couldn't be sure applied here. I told them in as much detail as I could manage without gagging, what the thing looked like, the skin sack, the smell of it. The more I said, the more skeptical they looked. But when I emphasized this was the exact reason I didn't want to tell them what I saw, they relented. I told them about my trips down to Laura's room to check on whether something there might have triggered the attack, and Murphy asked if I wanted to assist in a long running police investigation. Donner asked if I was sure that the thing going after Laura didn't now have my scent. I told him about the cleansing rituals, told him I was protected when he asked me by what I told him love and good vibes, which he very clearly didn't believe, but he didn't ask again. He muttered something I think sounded like Jamaican patois. I think the word was. Don't know what he meant, but it didn't exactly sound open and accepting of my clearly honest answer. And it was honest. Maybe not extensive or detailed, but it was honest. They unlocked Laura's room and I could feel the wrongness in the air, like the scent of nearby garbage, a rot that wasn't cloying but noticeable. They spread out to check the area and I began to feel my way around, eyes closed, trying to get a sense of the space and what didn't belong in it. I almost bumped into the table when I felt it. I touched something small and round on the table and I immediately had to run to the nearest sink to vomit. You know I hate it, the feeling of it in my throat. I've gone through some minor surgeries fully awake, and it's never been as bad as the feeling of vomit. Luckily, nothing had come up but spit off to the side of the square sink, and I could barely hear Donner shouting at me not to contaminate the crime scene, and Murphy asking if I was okay over the pulsing of my ears. And I saw it right in the drain, a piece of dead gray skin stuck to the black Mouth of the drainpipe. Donner wasted no time getting gloves on and taking a sample. While Murphy tried to keep me standing. Donner presented the evidence to me in a plastic bag, confirming that it was like the thing I'd seen. There was worry that the thing had gotten to the pipes and was long gone by now, but that didn't feel right. I went back to the table and found what looked to be a sewing project. A lovely vintage looking dress that Laura had been working on. Halfway done sewing these beautiful carved buttons into the fabric. I didn't have to touch him again to know they were wrong. I asked the two to beg him for evidence, and with a look on his face, I expected Donna to question it. But between the two, he was quicker to act. I don't know if I imagined him pausing when he picked a couple up with gloved hands, like maybe he could feel what I felt, but that's unlikely. I think Murphy looked like he wanted to ask, but seemed to think better of it. On the subject of the thing that had apparently come up through the pipes, I. I had a theory, but I couldn't go it alone. Which is how I ended up between two armed men taking point and watching my back as we made our way down to the unfinished basement level of my building. I could smell it now, stronger than ever, and from the look on Donner's face as he turned to me, he could too. Murphy asked if this was where all the garbage in the building was going. So three for three. The rotting thing was here. A presence strong enough that I wasn't the only one to feel it. Well, smell it anymore. The smell got stronger as we got closer. If we'd asked building security, they'd have told us construction was delayed in this section since they were waiting for someone from sanitation to find the source of the awful smell. But we didn't. We didn't really talk to anyone beyond the one guy who let us through with a flash badge. When we descended one of the few areas in the building, residents were underneath no circumstances to enter. The smell and the sick feeling I got where my stomach felt like it might rebel against my throat again was strongest by this one stretch of concrete where the only break in the gray was at the end of one drainpipe that was, to nobody in our group's surprise, dripping this thick, dark, slick looking liquid from which the smell seemed to be emanating. It was here, but it wasn't showing itself, and if we had any chance of stopping it now, we had to force it out. I asked for the bags of evidence, and I spilled the buttons out into the little puddle that had begun to form. And it happened all at once. A human scream and an animal snarl and the sound of melting, bubbling, blasting outward, something else I couldn't name, but that sounded horrifyingly familiar. I saw the gray face of a dead man screaming right in front of mine. His teeth were made of animal bones, the ribs and skulls of rodents, the fangs of a cat opening to bite my face off. Had Donner not dragged me back by my collar, the force of it enough to throw me down to the side, got a few bruises, ended up toppling over a few spare cinder blocks and lumber, but it was better than the alternative. I think he tried to shoot his gun, but the gray rotting thing wrapped around it and the gunshot was lost in the thick of it like shooting bullets into ballistic gel. I heard two more loud shots, thoughts echo in the enormous basement level, and saw that one of them caught the thing in its face, shattering the cat's skull and causing the rotting thing to turn its attention to Murphy, even while it had Donner's arm wrapped in its melting grip. That's when I realized its attention wasn't on me. Grabbing one of the heavy cinder blocks and dragging myself closer to the fray, I found what I was looking for for and raised the block right over my head and I slammed it down onto one of the ivoroid buttons, shattering the bone white patterns and warping the metal base. And like a garbage bag cut through with a knife, the rotting thing seemed to lose its shape, a hole forming in the thin translucent grey of its skin and spilling what looked to be the half gone remains of animals, rats, raccoons, and even dogs and cats. Still, it retained much of its form as it lunged toward me. Its sharp bone claws sliced into my back as I crushed the second and third button much the same way. It hurt so very badly, sharp and debilitating. But there were only a few more to go, and I knew I had to destroy them before the rotting thing did us in. When another couple of loud shots filled the basement and I saw two more buttons shatter from the impact of well aimed bullets. Donner, I learned later, with his sharp eyes and steady hand, was one of the best shots in the Force. The rotting thing was spilling out in all directions now, covering us in the remains of things long and recently dead. And before I could break the last button, what felt like the bones of an all too human hand caught my wrist and I looked into the empty eyes of a dead man. A jaw long since unhinged from the skull, I felt its rage as it tried to stop me from letting it rest. Then Donner and Murphy pulled it back. The last vestiges of the rotting thing that could still hold itself together. The center of the rot. Finally, I could raise the cinder block with the last of my strength. And I threw it down, shattering the last button. And slowly but surely, all the remains we saw scattered around around us melted away. And I could finally breathe again. From what I understand, the story was that they found a rabid coyote and had to put it down, which is apparently a thing in Toronto. At least that's what they told building management. After the rotting thing melted away, the three of us found the narrow little space between the building and its seven story neighbor and the hole where animals seemed to have fallen into, suffocating half underground. They got permits to dig and. And they found a bit of a horror show with a bunch of Torontonian wildlife piled on top of what they eventually discovered was an unidentified human corpse half baked into the cement of the old building ours had been built over. I was made to sign a statement by building management not to tell a soul about what I knew. And now I don't have to pay utilities ever. So something good came out of this. And it looks like I'm gonna be sticking around here for a lot longer now. I didn't get to see the dig, though. Donner and Murphy were kind enough to get me some gruesome pictures. Later on, they brought me to the hospital to have my scratches looked at. And Donner was apologetic about putting me in danger and giving me the few bruises blooming on my thighs when he threw me. It was silly for him to worry. He basically saved my life. Well, maybe I could have survived having my face ripped off by a cat skull, but I'd rather not think about it. Murphy offered to accompany me home and I accepted. Made him coffee and we had a nice afternoon talking. A weirdly normal afternoon. Until I remembered to ask him about the buttons. And he told me Donner took care of that evidence. I asked them if they did this often. Fight monsters, I mean. Murphy was uncharacteristically grim faced when he answered. We've only ever found the remains. And that's what happened. I. Oh crap. One sec. Hello? Donner? Yeah, no, I. I'm just. I've. I've got work, but Saturday. Yes, I. Mm. Oh, wait, one sec, one sec. King. Chinatown. Okay. Yes, of course. You're. You're. You're welcome. That was Donner. He said he found the one who sewed Laura those buttons. I have a theory, Nane. They didn't feel right. I know they didn't. I. Whatever it was that was under this building, whoever it was that was left there for so long, it. There's a reason it didn't wake up until now. Donner asked me to help. Said he needed me to feel the place out in case I caught something he couldn't see beneath the surface. I said yes. I know this has nothing to do with me, and I know you wanted me here. But with everything that's happened and with all the questions we still haven't answered, I have a feeling this is just the beginning. You're listening to Hai Naive by Motsi Dapol.
