Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29709755-20161026044742

I'm not entirely sure this works as a stand-alone story, as it was originally intended to be the first of 4 +/-1000 word chapters, but I reconsidered and decided it would be best not to try people's patience. Because of that, however,  it's a bit low-key. There's also some possibly-useful foreshadowing in the first few paragraphs that got cut.





76 Draper Street was an old triple decker built just about on top of Mount Ida, a few blocks from Fields Corner. The kind they built by the tens of thousands before the war when they needed a place to dump a half-million Irish in a hurry.



The first time I made a trip out there was two years ago, in the fall. Some time in late September we had the first really cold night of the year, and the tenants on the third floor turned on the heat for the first time. When that furnace fired up the smell that came through the vents was bad enough they cut the heat and threw all the windows open, freezing-fucking-cold weather notwithstanding. By the time I'd gotten there the wind had been whipping in off the top of the hill all night and the better part of a morning and it still reeked so bad it made me gag.



This sorta thing happened sometimes, the combustion chamber had a pilot light going all the time and because of that it was warm and dark and seemingly very safe, the perfect place for a cat to have her kittens or a raccoon to take a nap, if someone had left the big iron door open. The pilot light gave off enough carbon monoxide to kill them inside of ten minutes though, and they'd putrefy in there. When someone fired up the burners the rotted meat and burning hair and all the maggots and shit and corpse juice fuming up at once was bad enough I'd seen some people move out the same day.



<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">Either way, it was a pain in the ass but a relatively simple fix. Just scrape out whatever was left of the corpse, close the vents and crank it up to max until it stops smoking.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">I took the back stairs down, past the garbage piled up on the landings and the rubber mats on the steps to the cheap plywood door to the cellar. It was black enough leading down the stairs that I couldn't see the third step in. I looked, and on the inside wall were three big, red heavy-duty switches for the three furnaces and none for the lights. I'd just have to feel around down there.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">When I was down the stairs I could look back and see the timber frames and the steps coming down but nothing else. They looked like an island in space. In front of me was nothing but afterimages pulsing on my retinas. There was one in particular, the outline of a long, thin man, stooped over against the rafters, and it seemed to turn to face me as I shuffled through the cellar. It vanished after a minute when my eyes finally tuned in to the dark.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The first two furnaces were spitting hot. They roared dimly when I got close, and I almost thought I could see the air shimmer around them. The third one, all the way in the back, was cold as ice. I twisted the handle and pried the door open, slid on some heavy rubber gloves, and felt inside.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">There was something there alright. I felt the stubbly remnants of singed hair, skin that was stiff like cardboard, soft dead organs that were swelling up in it's belly, and if I listened closely I could hear maggots, hundreds and thousands of tiny white worms wriggling through the eyes, the mouth, down the throat, in the ears, the crotch. I read once that flies laid eggs in all the openings first, so the larvae wouldn't have to eat through the skin. I pulled out a trash bag and tugged on a leg.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The smell came then. It hit me like a blackjack, all at once and full in the face. Old meat, shit, burning hair, liquefaction and rot, oil fumes. I retched at it, turned my head away and started to scrape this thing into the bag. It was stuck to the burners in some parts, real thick sticky soot where the fat had burned, and I had to cut and rip at it with my electrician's pliers.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">Once it was in I turned back to the stairs and started to drag this thing with me. It was a raccoon or something, a real big bastard too. I could've carried it on my back but the thought didn't appeal to me. That smell was still searing in my nostrils and it was the kind of smell that would seep right through a trash bag, no matter how thick.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">I got a real uneasy feeling coming towards the stairs. The kind you can only get walking with your back to a dark, confined space. I don't scare easy, but I'd gone six months in Helmand with a .50 cal on my back and I knew the feeling when something was watching you.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">The bag was heavy, didn't drag too easily, and I certainly didn't wanna tear it open, so I just picked it up a few inches and hobbled my way towards the stairs while I tried to blank out and ignore the feeling of eyes probing at me in the dark.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">By the time I'd gotten to the first step my heart was throbbing and the tips of my fingers and toes had gone numb. The weather that day was cold and clear, wind like a razor, and I could hear it moaning through the cracks. As much as I told myself it was the wind, however, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was breathing down my neck. Steady waves of warm, damp air.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">I hauled the bag up one step, then took a step with it, hauled it to the next step, the next one, the next one. Halfway there, when I heard the bottom step squeak behind me. I jumped so high I nearly cracked my skull on the ceiling, hauled the bag up with both hands and sprinted up the rest of the way. Just as I got to the top the bag caught a nail that ripped a long gash across it's bottom and the raccoon spilled out down the stairs.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">I was out of the cellar now, my heart pounding like a sledgehammer and sweat pouring down my face, but suddenly calm now that I wasn't down there anymore, and already feeling like an idiot, when I looked where the raccoon had fallen out.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">On the steps was a tiny, limp doll thing, naked and contorted in impossible ways with taut shining skin that was dark with old blood and split open in places so it looked like an overcooked sausage. Hair burned off to the scalp. Wrinkled eyes opened wide in dull horror, and some liquid that was thick and yellow and oozed out of her. The mouth was grinning animate with the writhing of maggots. Below her, in the absolute darkness at the base of the stairs, a pair of glowing white orbs and a huge, open-mouthed smile, visible only by the unnaturally large teeth.

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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman",serif">  <ac_metadata title="Hide and Seek World Champion (unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>