Chapter 3: Normality bids you a kind adieu

A deep breath and….

Fred slung the door open, bowling through it in what he deeply prayed was an imposing and utterly terrifying fashion.

"Who's in….here…"He felt the words in his throat dissipated into the empty air as the stomp of the off-white socks he'd forgotten to take of last night trickled away to a stationary silence. The congregation of chairs huddled around the table along and tv that had an excellent view of the couch stuffed up against the wall were the only things around to bear witness to his oh so heroic entry…and even they didn't seem to startled.

Fredric straightened up, blinking at the inky gloom saturating the living room before him.

'See,' His internal voice of reason droned, letting the word buzz around his skull like some slothunly fly. 'No one here. Can we please go back to bed and quit this whole jumping at our shadow's routine? It's staring to worry me…'

But… but he had heard something. The furniture sure as hell didn't amuse itself at night by knocking into its fellow brethren and the pipes in the wall had scores of years left… at least that was what the land-lord had said, before they started going. No, he had defiantly heard something in here and there was going to be a sound, logical and thoroughly sane explanation for it.

Scouring the room, Fred took a step forward and…

'Squelch'

Whoa, rewind. That wasn't the sound one's foot normally made when coming down on the carpet…

A fresh sensation, something cold and damp, had started oozing its way through the thick layer of wool that kept Goldfarb's feet directly off the ground. The man let his neck go limp and his gaze drop, sliding down to the anomaly that was currently seeping through his left sock. He squinted; lifting back the foot in question… was it a trick of the neo-existent light or was the revealed bit of fabric a tone darker than the sea of the stuff sloshing about the rest of the floor? With a hint of caution, he tentivly pressed his foot down on it once again. Sure enough, that wet noise came swimming up to his pricked ears while the cold, slick feel of moisture took another damp lick at his foot. This time, he could even see the stuff bubble and rise up around the perimeter of his now thoroughly sodden sock.

"Now where did that come fr-"

'KLUNCK'

Suddenly, the wet clammy patch under-foot was the furthest thing from Fred's mind. The man froze, locked into position as all the muscles in his body seized up on him, clamping taught and stiff as the sudden rush of fear pumped through him.

That was the unmistakable sound of something o so solid and alive bumping against something else. Oh god. There was someone in here with him.

Frederick swallowed as the revelation lay heavy in his gut, the sound of his Adam's apple sliding up and down seeming deafeningly loud in his own ears. Slowly, so very slowly, he began to turn his head towards the noise's point of entry; the great bookshelf that towered happily over everything else in the room by the window with its flimsy, slitted blinds. The only thing his eyes found was a pool of solid darkness, interrupted only by the orange rectangles of light as they poked their way through the parallel gaps running through the shutters.

"W-who's there?" My god, was his voice really that feeble and shaky? If it hadn't been for the fact that Fredrick felt akin to anyone in the latter staged of a cardiac arrest right now he would have squirmed at just how pathetic that little whimper sounded.

'Tut-tut… got to do better than that.' Fred heard his mind's advice but couldn't really listen; no, he was to busy trying to stop his imagination going into over-drive in regards to just what was lurking in that deep, dark, enigmatic, depthless space. If he hadn't been living in this flat for the last tenth of a centaury or so and glanced in the direction of that point where the two walls merged into one another and the temple of literature at an average of twenty three point four times a day, Fredrick would have found it hard to believe that if he were to flick on the nearest light switch, those safe cosy things would all be revealed. No, from here that ominous darkness looked like some great, impossibly deep alcove; an entrance to a plane of pitch black shadows where all the things that lurked in twisted dreams ruled supreme. The mounting panic took another sharp jab at him; What if something from that dark, dangerous, unknown world was to come slithering in… better yet, what if it already had?

'Ok, Now you're just being stupid.'

Yes… his mental mentor was right. He was just over-tired and that combined with the revelation that there was somebody (who'd probably managed to pull of that all time favourite party trick involving a locked door and a credit card) was prowling about his very home.

With that settled Goldfarb swallowed his fear, turned off his imagination and grabbed the bull by the horns.

"I-I'm warning you right n-n-now… I'm going to call the cops unless…"

'ggggGGGGUUUUUURRRrrrrrr-'

Fred's lips tangled up the moment that rolling purr surged up from that oh so murky corner.

What. The. Hell. Was. That.

For once, the snappy little voice residing in the back of his skull didn't have a snappy comeback at the ready and very quickly it dawned on the man that he didn't particularly want to know what could make a noise like that. That retching (that was the only thing it could possible be put in the same league as)… in the sudden crushing silence that had coiled around the gloomy room like some thick bodied snake, it echoed in his mind, replaying itself over and over again in all its strangulated, hacking glory.

'J-just turn on the lights or something, then we'll see what it really is and laugh…yes, because it's just some one who's in a shitty state and come staggering into our apartment. Yeah, you probably forgot to lock the door… you know how forgetful you are, I'm always having to remind you to-'

The infallible, wet sploosh of fluid smacking into the floor cut off the frantic yammerings of his mind, instantly killing its sad attempt to assert some sanity on the situation.

The darkness shifted. Something rose up from the black, anomalous space below the window, blocking out the garish, out-side light as it blossomed into clear cut, faceless silhouette. That surreal, orange midnight glow of lamplight that remained untouched by this rising shape glanced off its sides did its very best to only highlight the smallest volume of detail… however, that alone was enough to make Fredrick's mind come to a crashing halt. For an insane gap of time, the man could do nothing but stand there, rooted to the spot and let his jaw go slack as his eyes absorbed what little there was that stood out from the black.

The thing turned and the discoloured streetlight danced off its wet, slick skin only to catch on the occasional humps where that moist, clammy flesh had bunched together. A scrawny neck, swollen with lumpy vertebra twisted up from its arched body, snapping and groaning as the silhouette's head rolled back.

'uuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRR' the black profile's mouth flopped open and the outside light was more that happy to highlight the jagged, blunt teeth that were suddenly cut against the gleam as once again, that heavy, vulgar groan broke into the silence. Once more, the sound caught and the thing by the window jerked as a torrent of gushing liquid came spewing forth from its yawning maw.

That was more than Fredric needed to see.

The man spun around, ripping his gaze free from that o so very solid shadow and vaulted for the door, feet slapping of the floor as he tried to put as much distance between him and that hideous, chocking thing. He tripped into the wooden panel cutting him off from the sweet sanctuary of the corridor outside, his fingers madly groping for the handle but the fleshy, frantic digits slick with their own salty juices just couldn't get a hold of the rounded knob hidden away in the dark.

"oh please"

Fredrik's ear's picked up on the loud thud of something collapsing onto the carpeted floor that shook the airwaves. Their epicentre… it was right in front of the window, wasn't it? He made another desperate snatch at the door handle as the sound of that thing feverishly scrabbling across the floor came scratching towards him with a sickening velocity.

Closer…

Closer…

Closer…

His fingers locked around the invisible hump of metal and in the nano second before the man did his best to rip the door from its very hinges and hurl himself over the threshold, the cool dome of copper was the most beautiful thing he'd ever felt in his entire lot of time on this earth.

With a scream, the man tumbled through the now open door out into the gloomy, waiting hall way. Catching himself before his momentum had the chance to hurl him into the adjacent wall, Fredric pivoted and took a mad swing at the door. Some distant, foggy part of his mind roared as the limply bunched fist caught the panel of wood and sent it slamming too before his twisted legs gave and he went crashing to the ground. He hit the floor, the wind rushing from his lungs with an ugly grunt.

And that was that.

Fredric lay there, heart pumping nine to the dozen and gasping like some poor unfortunate fish left to live out its last few moments of life suffocating on oxygen in the few dreg of water sloshing about a fisherman's boat. He let his eyes loll onto the hallway's floor which was suddenly only a bare few millimetres from his face as his mind tried not to frazzle out and overload as thought process after thought process came rattling through his already buzzing mind.

'that thing…was it what I…how could that…it couldn't be real…'

Fredric closed his eyes, his throbbing hand crawled up and gripped his tousled, shaggy hair as he tried to shut out the fearful up-roar raging within his skull. He didn't know… he just didn't know what that thing was. Maybe…maybe all those freakish details were just some malicious trick of the dim light… Maybe it just had been some poor rummy who'd come stumbling into his apartment looking for a place to hurl their guts…Maybe the boozed up sod had just collapsed to the floor in an alcohol-fuelled stupor and his brain, all dosed up on adrenalin, had merely imagined some sleek, wet, bony thing dragging itself after him on its very fingertips.

'See… now your thinking logically.' His inner concise piped up, just to remind Fred that it was still around and the two hadn't somehow managed to lose each other in that mad rush for the door. Out of the room with a layer of thick, solid wood between him and whatever it was scuttling about within 207, the voice's sneering, critical confidence had been reborn in a whole new glory. 'There's nothing else that possibly could have been.'

"And…" Fredric found him self adding between a pair of heavy, dragging breaths. "There's no such thing as…"

'Indeed!' The voice popped up, saving the gasping man from rattling the 'm' word. Boogie men and things that go bump in the night… yes, they were all ludicrous, unreal, fictitious things that could only terrorise the young as they huddled up under their blankets, casting a fearful eye to the shadows crawling up their bedroom walls or waiting for the tale-tell creak of the closet door slipping open on its own accord (or not)…

So, if that was the case, why did the simple notion of pulling himself up and throwing open the wooden seal that was 207's door turn his innards to nothing more than a lumpy, churning soup? Was it perhaps because deep down, in some repressed part of his throbbing brain, something knew that the thing Fred had barged in on stumbling about his living room was something no amount of logic could define?

No. No, that most defiantly was not the case. He….he just didn't want to have to deal with something like this, now or ever.

With this resolve imprinted on his mind, Fredric pulled himself to his feet, his arms clambering up the wall in an attempt to support the pair of legs below him that seemed to be racked by a jittering case of the shakes. The door to his apartment swam into view and Fred let the authoritive little voice barking away at him dare him into hanging his gaze upon it for a moment.

'See… a perfectly normal door leading into a perfectly normal apartment. There's nothing extra-ordinary about it…nothing…super-natural. Everything's as right as rain.'

Wait… that wasn't quite true…

Fredric looked up, his eyes skittering down the shady hallway and flittering about between the doors that lined it on either side. A sense of quiet and serenity was the only thing to be found here. No, it shouldn't be this way….people… his neighbours, they should be tumbling out of their rooms in flocks right now. After all, one of the many afflictions of the human condition was curiosity and, if his ears hadn't been telling him porky-pies, he'd been screaming like a stuck pig as he'd come tumbling from the room. Surely if one heard what sounded like bloody murder being committed on their very door-step they'd come swanning out in hope of catching all the gory details.

So, the question was this; why hadn't anyone poked their noses out?

Ignoring the solid form of his very own door that had some how been transformed from the most mundane of every day objects into an instrument of sheer terror (along with the heavy, cold dread that had suddenly gestated and swollen with in his gut), Fredrick shuffled back, turning to the identical rectangle of wood that shielded the room that had been christened 205 from the now empty, dimly lit hallway. Without even considering the fact that Harold Keaten, the somewhat gym bound man's man who'd occasionally throw him an unsavoury grunt as they past one another on the stairwell would probably reduce his face to an indented crater for rousing him from his slumber at whatever time it was, Goldfarb did what anyone in his situation would. He hammered on that polished surface like there was no tomorrow.

"Harold?"

Nothing but the sound of his own balled fist beating the wood found its way back to his peeled ears.

"Harold? Are you in there?"

Fred tried not to hear the way his words twisted themselves up and screeched their way from his mouth between the ever louder thud of flesh on wood.

"Wake up Harold!" He banged on the door a final time, both fists diving into the wood but that alone wasn't enough to drown out the fearful pitch of panic in his straining voice. Unrelentingly, he tore himself away and turned his already humming hands to the next door... and the next… and the next. By the time Fred had reached the end of the corridor he'd succumb to that primal anxiety which had been let free from its spindly cadge of reason and was screaming, clawing at the wood as he begged for an answer from somebody.

…But, no matter which of the doors he threw himself at, the response was all ways the same and he'd found the bitter answer to his question. No one came to his aid because, quite simply, no one on the second floor was home. Not one god damn soul. As this revelation finally burrowed through the hazy cloud of rabid trepidation that fogged his frantic mind, Fred found himself sinking away from the row of doors as they grinned maliciously back at the man.

Boiling frustration, panic and plain fear were all happily churning away inside him now. He felt his stomach lurch violently, the threat of expelling its meagre contense being no idle one and something pricked away at his eyes, goading out warm tears. His hands, now throbbing and already stained scarlet as the skin turned all pink found themselves and rung each other mercilessly.

"This… This just can't be…"

Possible. No, none of this could. Entire scores of people can't just up and vanish into the ether… hell, that was just as likely as coming across a freak of nature romping through your living room in the middle of the night. It was all just a dream… one of his horrible, horrible dreams. He'd wake up in a matter of minuets now with the familiar, stale smell of sweat plugging his nostrils and everything would go back to being normal. Everything… everything was going to be ok.

It was all fine and good and-

Fredric's fingers slipped, losing grip of the tiny ledge of rationality that held him suspended over this horrible, black myriad of chaotic emotion. Before he even realised what he was doing, his hands were back rummaging through his hair and he'd spun away from all those mocking doors and the empty rooms beyond. He barrelled through the entrance to the stair way and this rising wail came thundering after him. By the time he realised that sharp scream was coming from his own raw throat, it was far too late to make even the slightest difference.

A/N: Alrighty, I did warn you that this was going to be a slow and painful process and, my god, that's just what it's turning out to be. For those of you who are reading this, I thank you so much for putting up with the slow updates and I hope the text within makes up for that. To those of you who take the time to comment and critizise, I really appreciate you doing so. It means a lot and provides a hell of a lot of motivation.

…and I'm going to bugger off now before I find myself guilty of a 'gwineth paltrow'.