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Display a printable version Lost Love, Part Two
With the kidnapping of her beloved, Carolyn Thompson set out on a journey. Quite recently in this journey, she found herself the victim of her own fractured mind. She committed a great atrocity in the Mad City without any memory of it, and that will come back to haunt her. Let us join Carolyn as she arrives at the building where her girlfriend, Ashley, is said to be held... ***
Before her was a dilapidated office mid-rise in the middle of a disused industrial park. She counted eight rows of windows from ground to roof. The lots adjacent were leveled asphalt and gravel, adding to the distinctly foreboding quality of the surroundings. Carolyn walked up to the entrance. She could now see that the black rectangle was not a door standing open, but was instead a door frame stripped of its door. The light from the few streetlamps posted around did not penetrate far inside the building; Carolyn could only see a few feet past the threshold. There was a thick layer of dust on floor; no one had walked into the lobby in recent memory. Unnerved, Carolyn started pacing around, looking for a more recently used entrance. She wanted to follow the same path Ashley's captor would have used while avoiding any traps laid for her. Unless that is how it brought her inside, spoke her doubt from the back of her mind. In response, Carolyn shook her head vigorously, dislodging the doubt's grasp on her thoughts. She checked the windows on the front of the building for any signs of entry. The windows were large enough to crawl through, and all that was left of them were the weathered frames, pitted and splintered from exposure to the elements and time. In the faint light, she could make out reddish brown flecks on the wood, as though it were stained from the drippings of ancient pipes above, or dusted in the distant memory of rust-colored paint. Except there were no pipes above and the rest of the wood looked bare of paint. The more Carolyn examined the frame, the more it looked like a maw. The dappled half-light on the wood reminded her of teeth. The rust spotted the splintered wood like dried blood on a shark's hungry mouth. She took a breath and a step back, scanning the entire front of the building. The only entrance that did not suspiciously resemble a mouth was the main entrance. As she started walking around one side of the building, she saw other similar windows, none looking as though anyone had used them recently. Another voice in the back of her mind began to speak: It's not real. Haunted houses are just shit out of movies, girl. It's just a house. Her rational mind sounded panicked and unconvincing. She shoved that voice aside, in the same way she had banished her doubt. Silently, she said back to it, There is a time, a place for rationality. This isn't it. As she turned the corner to move alongside the back of the building, she saw a small loading dock and freight elevator. Unlike all the other openings, its doors were still firmly on the frame – metal doors set in a sturdy, newer-looking frame. They were shut, with thick chain and padlock around the handles. Carolyn debated blowing the door open, but decided against it. She didn't have a clear reason for continuing her survey around the building. Maybe she didn't want to give herself away, though she was sure whatever was inside already knew she was here. Perhaps, she thought, whatever went inside that way couldn't also lock the door from the outside, but that was a flimsy theory. In truth, she didn't know why her instinct said to move on, but she listened to it. The windows on the remaining side were like the others: grim, grinning mouths. She found herself at the front again. As Carolyn scrutinized the doorway, wondering why it was the only one that looked relatively safe, she suddenly noticed fresh footsteps just past the threshold. RUN! a third voice screamed in the back of her head. She ignored it, though thankful for the adrenaline it brought. Carolyn could still not see any further inside the building than she could before, and the new footsteps – big and far apart; a large man running – continued straight before fading into the darkness. She grimaced, knowing that what she was about to do would definitely remove any element of surprise she might have had up to that point. "Fuck it," she said out loud as she held up her hand and forced a minor explosion just past where she her vision stopped, in the middle of the air. The brief flood of light showed her the rest of the interior. She could see a large office lobby with an old desk, three or four yards beyond where the light from the street ended. Behind that, Carolyn could make out two symmetrical staircases, starting from the middle of the room and arcing up to opposite sides of the second floor, which was open to the lobby. She could also see two antique elevator doors on opposite sides of where the stairs met on the ground floor. Just as the light from her flash dissipated, Carolyn thought she saw a dark figure move from one corner of the second floor further up, out of sight. She briefly illuminated the room again to no avail, though she could now see a stairwell where she had seen the figure before. Looking at the stairwell reminded her of the hell she had just been through with Richard. Her breathing quickened as visions of monsters clawing their way towards both of them began to rise behind her eyes. A moment later, a scream shook her free from the hell of reliving that experience. A woman's scream. Ashley's. Carolyn put all her force and rage into kicking at the door frame, knocking a piece the size of her forearm loose. The building creaked, almost like a howl, and Carolyn snarled back. She grabbed the wood and ignited it, this time with only her mind and not with a gesture from her hand. Torch in hand, she shouted, "I'm not afraid of you! Give her back, or suffer the consequences!" With that, she crossed the threshold into the building. In stark contrast to the chill outside the building, the air inside was hot and dank, like the inside of a mouth. The voice in the back of Carolyn's mind screamed again RUN!, louder than before. Carolyn twitched her head to one side and rebuffed the voice again, not realizing until a moment later that she did so audibly. "Get a grip on yourself!" she hissed. She strode through the ground floor. As she put her weight on the stairs, they gave slightly, as though coated with a spongy layer. Not expecting the shift in her center of gravity, Carolyn stumbled forward, bracing her fall against the steps with the torch and her outstretched palm. The wood on her palm was rough, not unlike fine sandpaper, but hot and moist. As the fire began to light the step, the staircase creaked and shook slightly. Carolyn pushed off the step and sat back onto the floor. A gust of wind blew through the lobby, making her hand sting. She looked at her palm and saw that it was coated in small dots, welling up with blood. Several droplets fell onto the floor, and the building seemed to grumble with satisfaction. Carolyn could see no other usable way up than the stairs. Without power, the elevators likely didn't work; even if they did, she was disinclined to risk being trapped inside a small box, given how unfriendly this building was. "Listen up!" she shouted, focusing up on the second floor. "You're a weird, creepy house monster thing. I get that." Part of Carolyn's mind reeled at admitting such a thing, but she blocked it out as she stretched out her hand towards the lobby desk behind her. It exploded without debris, entirely consumed as though it itself was the explosive. The sound it made was quite soft – closer to the sound of a gun firing than a desk-sized bomb going off. The building creaked and howled in pain, the sound blowing through the windows like hot wind. "Let me pass or I do that to the rest of you!" she commanded. The building quickly silenced itself. After a moment, Carolyn took this as a capitulation. She tried the stairs again; they were firm. She walked up gently, not wanting to provoke the staircase or cause it to flinch in pain. The staircase remained steady, though with every step it emitted a low creak, much like a grumble. Once up the staircase, Carolyn quickly walked to the side stairwell where she had first seen the figure. As she glanced up, she saw it duck into the hallway several flights up. She was able to get a slightly better look at it this time – it looked small, maybe a child. Definitely not Ashley. "You're toying with me," she muttered under her breath. Seeing no other real option, she ran up after it. With the memory of being trapped in a monster-filled stairwell percolating up from the back of her mind, and not wanting to repeat whatever happened during her subsequent blackout, Carolyn leapt up the stairs two steps at a time. The stairwell creaked in protest with every bound. Carolyn felt winded midway through the second flight, but fear and adrenaline coursed through her body, keeping her moving. As she approached the top of the five flights, the steps suddenly fell slack and wet, tangling her feet in their fleshy folds. Carolyn began to tumble backwards, but caught herself by thrusting her torch into the now-soft tissue that had been the hand railing. The stairs tautened in pain and she ran up the last few steps while the building shuddered and moaned ineffectually. Looking quickly around, she saw the figure pausing long enough to get her attention before ducking into a hallway. Again, she got a better glimpse at her quarry. As it moved away, she could see that it was two dimensional, flat – as though it were truly a shadow and not just a silhouette. They continued their little dance – her chasing it, it pausing long enough at each turn so she knew where to follow – until she reached a hallway with a row of the maw-like windows looking out from the right side of the building. The shadow-thing ducked into a room at the end of the hall. Carolyn followed. As she ran past the first window, the walls bent inward and the teeth of the window frame flexed out like a pair jaws, snapping at her. She jumped back from the windows. Making the gun shape with her hand, she pointed at the window and focused her mind. The desiccated wood exploded, flying in all directions. Carolyn shut her eyes just in time, shielding most of her head with her arms. Tooth-splinters embedded themselves all over her forearms, along with a few in her left cheek. All was calm for a moment as Carolyn stopped to pick the wood out of her face and the larger pieces out of her arms. There were three more windows between her and the end of the hall, all of them suddenly flexing and bowing their frames as they reached for her. The one closest to Carolyn nightmarishly drooled rust-blood from the lower half of its frame. With her eyes shut and her concentration focused, she imagined looking at the building from the outside. In her mind's eye, she could see the outer wall – the one to the left of the front face. She noted where the floors met with the wall, where the strongest points likely were, and imagined placing little explosives right at those spots. Carolyn whispered, "Bang." The side of the building – the very wall before her now-open eyes – blew off and fell to the ground in an orderly, almost professional manner. Immediately, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Carolyn winced with instinctive regret. She could sense something was about to go terribly wrong, but she did not know what. The building swayed and creaked in protest. Carolyn stamped her foot down and shouted, "I warned you! Next time, there will be nothing left!" She held back tears; that demonstration of power had been a lot less effort than lighting the torch had been earlier, and that thought brought a memory to the surface. Three men were running away from me. One of them was a monster, one of those money-suited freaks. The other two look normal. Fuck 'em, I should just blow them all the Hell. So I did. It was easier to blow up the street than just some bodies, so 'boom!' A parked car landed on a woman. She screamed, and that irritated me, so I made her shut up. More people kept screaming, so I made them shut up. SHUT UP! SHUT UP! I'LL MAKE YOU ALL SHUT UP!! Carolyn started shouting "Shut up!" before snapping out of the memory. She could no longer hold back the tears, but she pressed on, hoping not to show weakness to the building or the shadow-thing she'd been chasing. Slowly and carefully, Carolyn walked down the remaining length of the hall. When she got to the entrance to the room that the shadow-thing had ducked into, she peeked her head around the corner. Like most of the rest of the building, the room lacked furniture. It was the size of a small classroom, square, with a long whiteboard on the wall opposite the doorway. The right side of the building was open to the outside air, being the wall she demolished. In the middle of the room lay someone tied to a chair which had been knocked onto the floor on its side, with its back to Carolyn. She leaned forward through the doorway, looking around for any sign of the shadow-thing. The was lit with what little street light made it up into this floor through the open-air wall. Carolyn bent and grabbed some debris from the hallway, and willed herself two makeshift torches. Although she knew that the person on the ground could very well be Ashley, Carolyn fought the urge to rush to her. Having just been almost eaten by a building, she focused her thoughts on self-preservation and not stumbling into traps. Instead, she crept around the edge of the room, checking for anything lurking in the shadows. She found nothing – no shadow-thing, no exit, no further attacks by the building. Feeling secure in her surroundings for the moment, Carolyn stepped carefully toward the figure on the ground, torches held high. "Hello?" The figure was unresponsive. Carolyn cautiously approached further, her mind recalling all those horror movies where a character approaches a seemingly unconscious or dead person, only for that person to be aware and suddenly attack. Her breathing grew rapid as she gingerly stepped forward, continuing to call to the person on the ground. The fire light shone on the figure's face. A disheartening sight – glazed eyes, slacked jaw, drool running down the side, dirty, slightly sunken cheeks – but it was unmistakably Ashley. Carolyn tossed the torches to the side, one rolling across the room and over the edge of the open side of the building. She rushed to Ashley and dropped to her knees. Tears welled in her eyes, and her heart jumped into her throat. She scooped Ashley, still tied to the chair, into her arms and held her tight. "God, I've missed you," Carolyn whispered into Ashley's ear, and kissed her forehead. Ashley didn't respond. Her body was warm and she was breathing, but Ashley remained slack. Carolyn quickly untied Ashley, then looked her in the eyes. "Ashley," her voice quivered in fear. She shook Ashley gently, but with no effect. "Ashley," Carolyn began to shout, again and again, as she tried to get her lover to show any signs of response. After moments of shaking, shouting and crying, she raised her hand to slap Ashley. Carolyn stopped herself in time, but with her limbs shaking in terror, she collapsed on the ground. Ashley slumped on top of her, and Carolyn sobbed while holding her catatonic lover. "I'm so sorry," she kept repeating, unsure if she was talking to Ashley or to herself. The shame she felt from almost striking Ashley pressed down on her like a very real weight. Sirens blared outside, snapping Carolyn from her sobbing. She tried to hoist Ashley's body up in order to carry her, but she was too weak and shaken after fighting for her life to get up to this room in the first place. As she desperately searched for some plan that might save them both, the air around them felt electric. A familiar voice called out from behind her, "Thank God you're alive!" Carolyn turned around. Standing there was Luke, along with an older, blond-haired man with severely scarred skin. The older man held a single-barrel shotgun his in hands as looked around the room. "Luke, Willi..." Carolyn started to speak in relief. She was interrupted by the shotgun being pointed at her face. "Do not say a word, girl," the blond man grimaced in a German accent. He racked the shotgun for emphasis. From outside, a bullhorn shouted in a methodical, mechanical voice, "You are surrounded. Surrender yourself immediately." As if punctuating its statement, several rifles shot into the air simultaneously. The old man motioned for Luke to hurry up. "Let's get going." Luke grabbed the old man's arm and Carolyn's, then closed his eyes and concentrated. Carolyn felt her stomach turn, and held onto Ashley for dear life. Like last time she was teleported, the world twisted in all different directions as it went black. *** Is Carolyn at the end of her quest, or has it merely begun? Has she escaped the frying pan, only to be thrown into the fire? I do know that judgment will soon catch up with her, but I wonder what form it will take. Take care, friends, until next month. I look forward to joining you as we continue our sojourn.
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| Last updated on 4/14/2008 9:49:40 PM by Jennifer Brozek |
| Return to the Library. Go to Sojourns 2008. |
Carolyn arrived at the address listed in the article unscathed. She was almost caught when she stumbled straight into two turnkey cops, but luckily they seemed uninterested in her.