Nights ~ V

But the pitch-blackness lasted only a moment. Large, round emergency lights clicked on. They gave the room an amber glow. The light cast elongated shadows on the floor and ceiling. Thought it was hardly idle lighting, it was better than working in the dark.1

However, a new thought struck Jon. He walked briskly to the desk and looked at the phone base. All of the lights were dark. He picked up the phone. It was dead. No necessarily, he told himself. The phone line could be just fine. But since the phone needed to be plugged in to work, he had no way of knowing. If there was a rotary phone somewhere in the building, he could use that to place a call. If he found that filter.2

He got on his hands and knees again and looked at the phone cord. It fell straight from the phone to the floor, traveled for a few feet, met with the other two cords that led from the other phones, and then entered the floor. He had suspected this. The filter must be in the basement.3

He stood up and shook his head, and a smile played across his lips. His night had played out like a B-grade horror movie. Now, he thought, the plot thickens, as they say. First the storm, and then the lights and now his imminent journey into the bowels of the company building. It all was terribly clichéd. And yet…4

And yet there was something undeniably pungent in the air. It wasn’t that there was an odor hanging in stale clouds above his head; no, this was a feeling, an intuition. He could sense it inside of him. It was almost like invisible fingernails were scratching at his skin. Soon they would break the epidermis and devour sinewy flesh like savage vultures picking through a corpse…5

He shook himself out of his stupor and focused his thoughts on more important things, namely, the basement door. It was at the other side of the company building. As always, it was closed. Its finished wood surface was smooth, plain, undecorated by color or ornament. Jon doubted there were emergency lights down there. He systematically checked each desk, drawer after drawer, for a flashlight. He found a small one attached to a key ring and decided he’d make it work.6

He worked his way over to the basement door. He double checked that the flashlight worked. It did. He reached for the brass colored doorknob. He braced himself for whatever may wait for him behind the door. He prepared to face the alien world that lay beyond this doorframe. He was ready to go home, and now this door and what secrets it held were all that kept him from his wonderfully ordinary, well-lit house.7

He turned the knob and pulled on the door.8

It was locked.9

Jon pushed the door inward, but it did not open. He turned the knob left and right, but it proved useless. Disbelievingly, Jon let go. It was his luck, of course, that it should be kept locked. All right, he thought, there must be a key somewhere. Perhaps if he checked near the filing cabinets he would find one. He sighed, felt the sense of foolishness returning, and looked back and the locked doorknob. You really need to stop acting so incredibly stupid, he scolded himself. If Theo saw you like this he’d get quite the—10

No. That wasn’t right.11

He blinked and checked the knob again. His jaw dropped at the impossibility.12

There was no lock on the door, and there was no keyhole in the doorknob.13

He threw down the small flashlight and lunged at the door. He pounded his fists against it. It remained static, unfeasibly static. His punches did nothing to it. There was no hollow reverberation as sound traveled through the door and into an open cavity. Instead there was only a muted, wooden thud. He might as well have been punching a solid oak tree. It was as if there was nothing behind the door but bricks, unmovable and unforgiving. His hands began to hurt, so he relented. He placed a firm grip on the doorknob and tried to shake it, but the only thing that moved was his own body.14

With a frustrated grunt, Jon kicked the flashlight at the door and walked away. He returned to his own little section of this nightmare of a building. He sat in his office chair, behind his desk. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He was getting very tired. He looked at the clock and saw that hours had passed. It was the middle of the night now, or very early in the morning, depending on how you wanted to look at it. However, if he was to sleep here, he was going to need to be much, much more tired.15

He rolled his chair over to some filing cabinets. They were towering grey sentinels that stretched from floor to ceiling. Inside of their bellies was the only information about this company, and Jon had read it all. Now, though, with a night ahead of him, he decided to reexamine some of the files, if only to confirm to himself that he’d missed nothing. (He was quite sure he hadn’t. He had been very thorough his first time around, and the files didn’t exactly read like a page-turner).16

He unlocked the drawers with a set of keys on his own keychain, which he kept in his desk. He pulled out a stack of manila folders and sat them in front of him. He reclined as best he could in his swivel chair and put his feet on the desk. In the dim glow of the emergency lights, he sat and read. He eyes lazily flowed across each page. There were the floor plans again (blasted basement) and some utilities bills. He flipped through the pages. Sales records, budget plans, old memos. Then a contacts list. He glanced down the page at all the initialed names. R. Hoffman. P. Wagner. S. Jones. Nothing interesting in the least. The monotony of his work soon began to take a toll on his body. His eyes began to burn; each blink lasted longer and longer. 17

Before sleep completely overtook him, he dragged himself to his feet. He wiped his eyes and started walking toward the back of the building. Thunder shook the building and rain hissed a continual snarl. He spotted the bathroom door and entered. Here the only illumination came from a ghastly red emergency light that cast a crimson tint on the whole bathroom. It was sufficient, though, and thankfully merciful to Jon’s eyes. He finished and went over to the sink. He squeezed some soap onto his hands from a dispenser and turned on the warm water. It sputtered a moment and then the flow began. To Jon’s dismay, the water was cloudy and dark. The storm must have done something to the waterlines, he speculated, and now the water was muddy. The weather must be more severe than he thought.18

He washed in the mucky water. It was thick and sticky with dirt. The flow of it over his skin was almost repulsive, given the crimson discoloration caused by the light. It almost looked like—19

No, he told himself. You’re not thinking like that anymore.20

He turned off the water and held his hands in front of him, careful not to splash the filthy water on his clothing. He reached for a paper towel, but the roll was empty. This infuriated him. A string of vulgar phrases of anger and frustration rolled through his mind. Unsurprisingly, this did not cause paper towels to appear. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and calmed himself. He’d find something to dry with in the office area. Wet, sullied hands held in front of him, he pushed open the door and walked back into the main room.21

As the bathroom door swung closed, the red glow disappeared.22

The liquid on his hands remained crimson.23

And then the horrors began.24