The Violation in 314 ✔️

***9***

Mickey was proud of himself and his moment of courage for all of a millisecond, and then instantly regretted it. The smell of rotten eggs – definitely eggs – struck him like a brick in the face. This was not the odor of eggs left too long in a backed-up sink, however, but eggs rotting mingled with the stench of sewage.

The latter was likely coming from the body of Mr. Weber – when he was a kid, Mickey had read that you shit yourself when you die and he had always thought that it seemed fitting. You leave the world the way you entered, bathed in fluids and muck, shitting and pissing with no control.

Yet the smell, putrid as it was, was the least of Mickey's troubles. The overhead lights were off now, and Mickey could only see in the thin illumination stretching from the hall into the dark of the apartment. Beyond that his only visibility was within the beam cast by his trusty Maglite. But there in that cone of light, directly in front of the door, laid the lifeless body of Mr. Weber; his skull cracked open and spilling its contents of blood, bone, and brain onto the carpet. That was a stain that was never coming out.

Off in the darkness, Mickey could hear the sound of breathing. Raspy. Fast, panicked breaths.

"Abbie?" he called. "Are you in here, Abbie?"

No response came, only the silence of the dark room, and the fast breaths. Did they speed up a little at the sound of his voice?

Mickey clicked on the light switch to his right. In every apartment this controlled the front outlet, and most tenants kept a lamp nearby cued to this switch. Here, however, no light came on. He shined his flashlight towards the corner closest to the entrance, mere feet from the controlled outlet, and sure enough there was a lamp. The bulb lay smashed into tiny fragments of glass and filament.

By the door laid half a dozen discarded shoes in a neat row. Apparently the Weber residence was a shoe free home. Mickey kicked four of the shoes over towards the door, to prop it open, but the door was heavy, and when he moved his shoulder it began to close. He cast the beam of his flashlight quickly through the blackness of the apartment, but saw no sign of movement. The breathing must be coming from another room.

In a hurry, he bent down and jammed one of the shoes between the door and the frame just below the hinge. The once fine heel didn't hold the door all the way open but it didn't allow it to close either. He stood, whipping his Maglite about the dark ahead of him. He thought he saw movement to his right.

"Halt," he said, not quite knowing what he would do if he was or wasn't obeyed. When he cast his light back in the corner, however, the space was empty. The light reflected off a silver crucifix hanging on the wall, then stopped on a thin hoodie swaying slightly as it hung from an old style wooden coat rack. No one was to be found.

Mickey stepped inside, his eyes finally adjusting to the light. The smell, however, the smell could never become tolerable. He lifted his shirt collar up above his nose and stole inside like a bandit stealing through the night, his mask drawn over his face.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut snapping the heel cleanly in two and fracturing the door's misshapen top corner as it caught against the frame and obliterated, exploding in a shower of needle-thin splinters. Then, what remained of the door, clicked shut as someone, or - let's face it - something gently turned the handle and pushed it in place.