Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29709755-20161102053742

This is part II of a short series I'm doing. In addition to whatever general criticisms you might have, I've got a few specific concerns I hope you can address:

First, I'm worried the ending falls a little flat, or at the very least is repetitive.

Second, I would have preferred the protagonist build up a bit of a relationship with the girl, but that would have been an extra 1000 words or so of not-scary and I just couldn't find a way to pull it off. It got pushed up to part III.

Third, the names might be a little on the nose.

Anyway, enjoy. Or don't. I'd prefer the former though.



It was not long after that incident in the cellar that the tenants began to move away. The people on the third floor were the first out. They said the smell that came out of the vents that day never quite left, that it clung to the air like something sticky, black tar, and once they'd heard what was down there making the smell it was too much for them. They ended up throwing out all their furniture, most of their clothes too, and they were gone that Friday.

 Next to leave was the second floor tenants. They stuck it out for a while, two weeks or so, but there was something in the air now and they weren't willing to deal with it, whatever it was.



The people on the first floor were the last to go. Apparently they told the owner they would have stayed but they kept hearing banging on the floor and weird sounds coming from the vents. They'd figured it was pipes knocking under the floorboards or something, but it was interrupting their sleep.



And just like that, the whole building was empty. Third floor, then second, then first, a countdown to zero.





I'd been having a rough time of it. The kid stirred up some bad memories. I started having dreams again, waking up with my hands shaking too bad to flip a light switch and the sound of blood rushing through my ears.



<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">It got worse when I heard back from the police. I told them there was someone down there, the person that killed the girl. They said there were tracks on the floor, in the dust. One set in, and one set out. Nobody else had been down there for months. Except the girl, of course. Maybe she hovered.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">For the first time in about a year I went to bed with my rifle, condition 3 with a 100-round drum mag and the sling wrapped around my leg so nobody could snatch it away while I slept.

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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">The property managers had a hard time renting this place out afterwards. Another month went by, people came by to look at the apartments every day but nobody ever came back. The owner let it slip into foreclosure.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">When an apartment building goes into foreclosure in this state there's a year-long sort of legal limbo that tenants find themselves in. The old owner can't collect rent, because he doesn't own the property any more, but the bank hasn't fully taken posession of it, so they can't either, nor can they kick the tenants out. After the year is up the bank pays any remaining tenants a couple g's to move. It was for this reason that one of the cleaners for the company I worked for, Saul, decided to move in once the building became vacant.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">He'd gone on deployment with me. Helped me get this job, too. I wouldn't call us friends though. He put a lot of effort into trying to fuck me when we were out there, which became a lot sleazier when I learned he was married and had a kid. He'd asked for help moving and I told him to shove it up his ass, but he managed to con me into it with a combination of name-calling and $200. Anyway, he had his daughter Persephone there for the weekend so I figured I'd be safe.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">We got an early start that Saturday, managed to get the whole house moved in three trips. The last load had the mattresses and the couch and we ate up a lot of time trying to wrestle those things up the tall, narrow stairs. Finally we finished, hours after dark, and I was getting ready to head out when he managed to convince me to stay a bit longer so we could set up some of the furniture so Persephone could watch some TV and have a bed to sleep in. I agreed for her sake, rushed through it with him and was about to leave to catch the train at Field's Corner when he pointed out the trains weren't running any more.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I looked at my watch. 1247. The last train had come and gone a few minutes ago.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"Fuck!"

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"Why don't you just stay the night here?"

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">He came out with it a bit too quicky and a bit too eagerly. It transpired that he'd been drinking too much to get behind the wheel and wouldn't give me the keys to the moving truck either, for liability reasons. I sighed.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"You cocksucker..."

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I craned my neck up. 89 Ashland Street was at the top of a long flight of granite stairs. 20 feet up just to get to the porch. I didn't like the way it seemed to loom forward, how the black windows looked like eyes peering down. And I sure as fuck didn't like what I'd found in the basement. No way in hell did I want to spend the night here. I was fucking terrified of this place. I could get a cab if I didn't mind not eating for a week, or walk if I didn't mind being murderfucked or charged with prostitution, but other than that my options were pretty limited.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"At least walk with me to the liquor store. You can think about it on the way."

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">That tore it. His daugher was asleep on the couch and he was going to leave her here alone. Or maybe not. She was about the same age as that girl in the basement.

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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Upstairs, on the second floor, I picked her up and carried her to her room. She woke a little, started to whimper, and I rocked her back and forth while I shushed her back to sleep. When she'd gone down again I went to the living room, sat on the couch, flipped through the four local channels the antennae picked up, and passed out watching a repeat of the 11 o'clock news.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I don't know what startled me awake, but when I came to I was standing bolt upright, alert and ready for action. It was still pitch-black out, there weren't many streetlights in this part of town, and I could just barely make out the lines of the room. When I flipped the lightswitch, nothing. I decided since I was up I'd take a piss, and shuffled over to the head.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">That's when I heard it. A girl's laughter. High and squealing, an excited, playful screech. I ran to Percephone's room. The door was open and the bed was empty. Next, her father's room. I figured, or I hoped, that she'd just woken up and gotten in his bed. Nothing there either. That fucking shitbird still wasn't back yet.

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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I heard another yell, far off and very muffled again. I walked into the kitchen and that's when I saw the back door was open. My heart siezed up, felt like it was in a bench vice, and a shiver ran through me like I'd been dunked in icewater.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">"Percephone!"

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I could hear the shake in my voice, the jittering. No answer, just the laughter. It was coming from down the stairs.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I ran, leapt down the steps a flight at a time, landing with a thud that made the beams shudder, all the way down to where the sheet of plywood hung loose and gaping over a black square of midnight, the cellar entrance. I shouted to her, screamed with all my might as I bounded down the stairs. On the edge of my perception was the stench of the basement. Old, dead blood, like hamburger that someone had left in a parked car in the summer, overlaid with the stink of disinfectant. At the bottom step I saw her. Her white gown spinning and twirling in the darkness as she squealed with delight. In the far, far corner, next to the third furnace.

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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I picked her up in a bear hug. Her laughter froze and she began to shriek horribly, like she was being torn apart, burned. She fought like a tiger but I cinched down tight and pivoted back around towards the stairs.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">It wasn't my imagination this time. I heard it. Deep, shuddering breaths that shot through the clenched teeth of something unspeakable, the thing that stood behind you in the dark. The closer I got to the steps the louder it became, until it opened it's mouth in a deep growl. With each breath the growl grew louder, shriller, until it was screaming. Coming closer with each step I took until it hammered my eardrums, made my head split so the floor twisted and rocked and my feet fell flat and heavy. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and hammered down into the floor. I clenched down on the handrail at the base of the stairs, rocketed up and almost ran straight into the wall on the landing on top. One leg kicked out against the patio door and it shot open. I ran into the yard, spun around and stood there, the girl now limp in my arms, watching the door.

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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I cried, sobbed, hot stinking tears ran down my cheeks and onto her nightgown, every muscle shook and burned, my lungs were on fire. From inside the doorway came a hollow laugh. It made the windows rattle in their frames. I vomited as I stepped away, bumped into the back fence, and slid to the ground gasping for breath like a dying fish. <ac_metadata title="76 Draper Street - 2nd Floor (unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>