Love and Rainbows
The light switch clicks several times. Nothing. Like a scared animal he descends, ready to bolt from the blackness at a sound. The maglite illumines the bottom of the stairs; pistol crossed over, follows the beam.
The staircase is wooden. Old. Creaks as he descends, a natural alarm. It seems to descend to the middle of the room with no wall or rail on either side. His muscles tighten, sweat slicks gun and flashlight both. A sound at the bottom and he pivots. There's nothing there, just filthy concrete and cardboard boxes.
A squeak, rubber on concrete, as he alights. The basement is huge, cluttered with the debris of a lifetime of hoarding. There are no windows. His arms, cruciform, cut the dark away, the beam too narrow for comfort.
He walks to a cloth-covered bench, tugs the yellowing shroud away with two fingers and the gun.
Nothing.
A stanley knife, a half-empty bottle of kerosene, a pair of tweezers.
Something?
He follows his flashlight away. It pauses on a huge wardrobe in the corner of the room, regal and imposing. His legs are lead now. Now they're water. One foot finds its way in front of the other, and then again. Ten feet away, passing a copper chest, he trips. The light bounces away. In the half-light he sees a corpse, skin gone to leather, propped against the wall. Empty eyes witness his humiliation. Its hands lie in black islands of long-dried blood.
Adrenaline floods his system. His throat burns. He smells piss before he feels the warmth spreading across the front of his jeans, and he retches.
Reduced to infantile, animal, fear he whimpers. His fingers sting as he scrabbles across the cold flooring. Towards the light. Away from the body. He leans too heavily on the gun and pain ignites in his wrist.
He hears the stairs creak. For a moment he wants to curl up and wait. He grabs the torch up and turns, fires on instinct at the staircase. Four shots, maybe five. The nine-millimetre rounds tear ragged holes in the old timber. Too low. No one there anyway. He scans the room, backs towards the wall.
A sigh of fabric somewhere to his right.
Echoes of echoes of the gun's report. He feels like he's moving in water. He can't think. He chases the sound with gunfire, splinters wood and glass.
He pauses, draws a ragged breath. He tries to exhale softly but it turns into a violent sob, salt stings his eyes.
I don't want to die, he thinks. I don't want to fucking die in a fucking basement.
He scans the room again, light sweeping back and forth. He catches the tail of a shadow darting between cover. He fires. Fear controls his hand. His trigger-finger spasms with the beat of his heart, and the gun jams. He holds the light between his knees. He frantically works the slide, a casing spinning into the air before his face.
The gun feels light. It's empty. It has to be empty.
He hears footsteps now, the Walker no longer cautious.
He turns out the torch. He doesn't want to see. Some remnant of ancient instinct, perhaps, that we should close our eyes before the final blow.
A fear of the unknown. In being unknown having assumed a million forms, in aggregrate darker than any reality. No. Not in this place. Imagination could not encompass it.
The footsteps are louder now, and faster.
He raises the gun, and the Walker hesitates.
His arms don't stop, though. Mechanically they push the pistol up under his jaw.
The Walker begins to run.
The air around his face moves as the Walker lunges.
He braces for the sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber, and the cold clasp of hands around his neck.
In the end he doesn't feel anything, nor does he hear the gun's report.
* * * * * *
An exercise in a leaner style of prose than is my wont. I see the potential for pronoun confusion but it is also part of style I was aiming for.
The staircase is wooden. Old. Creaks as he descends, a natural alarm. It seems to descend to the middle of the room with no wall or rail on either side. His muscles tighten, sweat slicks gun and flashlight both. A sound at the bottom and he pivots. There's nothing there, just filthy concrete and cardboard boxes.
A squeak, rubber on concrete, as he alights. The basement is huge, cluttered with the debris of a lifetime of hoarding. There are no windows. His arms, cruciform, cut the dark away, the beam too narrow for comfort.
He walks to a cloth-covered bench, tugs the yellowing shroud away with two fingers and the gun.
Nothing.
A stanley knife, a half-empty bottle of kerosene, a pair of tweezers.
Something?
He follows his flashlight away. It pauses on a huge wardrobe in the corner of the room, regal and imposing. His legs are lead now. Now they're water. One foot finds its way in front of the other, and then again. Ten feet away, passing a copper chest, he trips. The light bounces away. In the half-light he sees a corpse, skin gone to leather, propped against the wall. Empty eyes witness his humiliation. Its hands lie in black islands of long-dried blood.
Adrenaline floods his system. His throat burns. He smells piss before he feels the warmth spreading across the front of his jeans, and he retches.
Reduced to infantile, animal, fear he whimpers. His fingers sting as he scrabbles across the cold flooring. Towards the light. Away from the body. He leans too heavily on the gun and pain ignites in his wrist.
He hears the stairs creak. For a moment he wants to curl up and wait. He grabs the torch up and turns, fires on instinct at the staircase. Four shots, maybe five. The nine-millimetre rounds tear ragged holes in the old timber. Too low. No one there anyway. He scans the room, backs towards the wall.
A sigh of fabric somewhere to his right.
Echoes of echoes of the gun's report. He feels like he's moving in water. He can't think. He chases the sound with gunfire, splinters wood and glass.
He pauses, draws a ragged breath. He tries to exhale softly but it turns into a violent sob, salt stings his eyes.
I don't want to die, he thinks. I don't want to fucking die in a fucking basement.
He scans the room again, light sweeping back and forth. He catches the tail of a shadow darting between cover. He fires. Fear controls his hand. His trigger-finger spasms with the beat of his heart, and the gun jams. He holds the light between his knees. He frantically works the slide, a casing spinning into the air before his face.
The gun feels light. It's empty. It has to be empty.
He hears footsteps now, the Walker no longer cautious.
He turns out the torch. He doesn't want to see. Some remnant of ancient instinct, perhaps, that we should close our eyes before the final blow.
A fear of the unknown. In being unknown having assumed a million forms, in aggregrate darker than any reality. No. Not in this place. Imagination could not encompass it.
The footsteps are louder now, and faster.
He raises the gun, and the Walker hesitates.
His arms don't stop, though. Mechanically they push the pistol up under his jaw.
The Walker begins to run.
The air around his face moves as the Walker lunges.
He braces for the sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber, and the cold clasp of hands around his neck.
In the end he doesn't feel anything, nor does he hear the gun's report.
* * * * * *
An exercise in a leaner style of prose than is my wont. I see the potential for pronoun confusion but it is also part of style I was aiming for.