Chandru CS

IT was cold in the elevator shaft. The surfaces of the building’s inner structure, where only maintenance men ever visited, were sheathed in years of built up dust. It was silent by nature—the only noise that found its way into the dark passage was the occasional passing of the elevator car. A button would be pressed and the hoist would come to life, taking the lift from one floor to another. The doorway would open, the passenger would exit, and the shaft would return to its hibernation. Somewhere on the building’s upper levels, a powerful impact broke the silence, ripping the steel doors off their mounts and shooting two enemies into the shaft. Light burst into the passage as the figures struck the adjacent wall. They began to fall, each struggling to gain the advantage over the other, grappling with limbs, trying to maneuver so that one would find himself on top when they hit the ground. Peter’s hair whipped past his face as he plunged out of the light and into the darkness below. He grunted as the beast pushed him into one of the I-beams lining the shaft’s corridor. The enemy always had an edge in tight spaces. They had more mass to use against him. This, and the darkness, was putting him at a considerable disadvantage. He’d been outclassed since the fight began, unable to find a vulnerability. Now, as he fell deeper into the dark, he knew that if he didn’t land on top, it would be the end. It wouldn’t kill the beast to take the brunt of the fall, but it might hurt the bastard enough to turn the tables. He could only imagine the ground rushing towards them. He couldn’t see in the blackness, but knew his enemy could. He felt another impact, sensed their momentum slow, and knew the beast had taken a hit against one of the beams just as he had a moment earlier. I hope it hurts, he thought. They slammed back and forth violently, beam to beam, until their bodies dropped into free fall down the shaft’s center. Despite Peter’s efforts, it had little effect on the uncontrollable spin into the dark. They crashed hard into the basement floor. The cement cracked beneath them as it absorbed their fall. The lower floors of the building rumbled as the vibrations from the impact shook its foundation. The beast’s weight on top of him made the sudden stop feel like being crushed between two walls. Ribs broke. A lung collapsed. The air rushed out of him and he nearly lost his grasp on consciousness. On the ground floor, he desperately attempted to breathe, but only coughed on mouthfuls of agitated dust. He knew he’d lost. The beast, hurt but not injured, rose to its feet over him, its massive shoulders and head only an outline as the light from above kept its features in shadow. It seemed to be waiting, hoping Peter would get to his feet and fight back. In his panic, it was all he could do to focus on breathing. Forcing his broken body to stand was no longer possible. Peter searched for the zipper holding his jacket shut. His fingers fumbled through gloved hands as he tried to get a grip, desperate to make his breathing easier. Finally grasping the pull tab, he drew the jacket open. A soft orange glow from beneath his T-shirt illuminated the passage. The light, like a candle in a cave, brought his enemy’s face into view. It flinched as its eyes adjusted. Breathing painfully, he met the monster’s gaze. He’d never seen one of them hold still this long, never looked into their empty white eyes. This was the first time he’d been this helpless in front of one. His enemy could see he no longer presented a threat. Its large hand reached down, grasping him by the jacket, and raised his body out of the small crater they’d punched into the floor. The movement was agony. He could feel his ribs, loose within his torso, moving unnaturally under his muscles, and he cried out. The beast pressed his back against the wall of the shaft, his feet dangling a foot from the floor, his head at eye level with the monster. Peter let his hands fall to his sides, all his energy going into the effort to breathe, to keeping his head up. “Go to Hell,” he whispered. If he’d had the strength, he’d have spit the blood now pooling in his throat into the thing’s face. Its head tilted. The beast had heard the words, but did not seem to comprehend. Peter could guess at its confusion—it didn’t know what the term meant. There was no word like Hell in the damn thing’s language. It didn’t seem to concern itself for long with comprehension. It said nothing, and Peter saw that its neck was contracting, bulging up around its jaw line. He looked away, letting his head come to rest on his chest. Better to close your eyes, he thought. He tried to think of his parents, his brother and sister. He heard the monster’s mouth opening, heard it growling, felt the heat of its breath. He thought about the damn blond man, how he had asked Peter to fight. When the teeth sunk into his neck, he cried out again, clenching his eyes shut as the blood ran. The beast’s head jerked back and forth mercilessly as it ripped the flesh from him. He wailed as the skin and muscle tore free, heard the beast spitting out parts of him to the shaft’s floor. Peter remembered the blond man had asked, “Will you help us stand against them?” It was the last thing that crossed his thoughts before they stopped forever. The light in his chest began to flicker and fade as his heart struggled to push less and less blood through his body. Eventually, the glow died out entirely and the creature was returned to darkness. It frothed from its jaws, its saliva becoming thick with a waxy purple excretion. The process was short lived, interrupted by the arrival of the gate as it surrounded the beast and Peter’s body. For a moment, the shaft was filled with the gateway’s bright red light. Then there was a sudden flash of white. The passage was dark; no light from above, no imploded doors, no damaged walls, and no crater in the flooring. Somewhere in the upper floors, a passenger called the lift. The elevator came, the doorway opened, and the passenger boarded. The car lowered, stopped, and delivered its occupant. The shaft returned to silence, a place no one ever went, waiting for its next passenger, hibernating. DECEMBER 1996 SEVEN YEARS EARLIER CHAPTER ONE DECEMBER 1996 | SEVEN YEARS EARLIER HIS hand glided over the mahogany, lingering on the table’s smooth surface, cool to the touch as he moved his fingertips slowly from one picture frame to the next. The table with the photos stood out against the gray walls and white trim. Jonathan had chosen those colors. His father had let him pick out the paint when they had refinished the hallway, under the condition that he chose something tasteful. “Be nice if it matches the furniture, too,” his father had said. Getting to pick the paint had made Jonathan more interested in helping to do the work, as its success or failure then hinged on one of his decisions. He’d only realized later that Douglas, his father, had planned it that way, to give him a stake in the outcome. That memory was far away now as he stood there in his black suit and tie, his brown hair combed neatly; a thirteen-year-old boy without a father. When Jonathan’s grandfather had passed, he’d put up a fuss about wearing the suit. He’d asked his father why it