Chapter 5
"Uhm... hey guys, what are we doing over here?"
Matthias blinked awake. The room was still dim and it took him a minute to realize where he was, longer still to recognize who had spoken. He was on his couch, nestled in the absurd, orange cushions with Trav sprawled out across from him with his feet nearly in Matthias' lap. Trav shifted, waking up, struggling to raise himself from the couch's warm embrace.
"Ruby?" Trav asked, his voice mushy with sleep.
"Yeah, babe." Ruby's head poked through Matthias' front door, one eyebrow raised. "Are you guys alright?"
Matthias couldn't remember if he was alright. He had no idea why he and Trav were crashed out on his couch and the memory didn't seem to be forthcoming. The night before was a messy blur like smeared paint. He had come home from work and... what? Played video games with his neighbor and fallen asleep? Had they been drinking? He glanced around. There was no evidence of bad work-night choices. Not even so much as a empty can of Monster in evidence. He'd been hung over a few times in his college career and this didn't feel like it; no headache, no nausea. He'd lost time during finals week too, he recalled. Whole swaths of endless study sessions missing without so much as twinge of worry from Matthias. Could he just have been that tired last night? He pushed his palms into his eyes then ran his hands back through his scraggly hair. His name badge jingled. He was still wearing his work uniform, coat included.
Travis eased himself upright and swung his leg awkwardly so he was in a sitting position. He winced, "Shit."
"You okay, honey?" Ruby crossed to him, setting a grocery bag on the floor as she went. Matthias stared at the bag. He'd gone shopping after work last night. Was it his? Had he left it on the landing when when and Trav...? His focus dodged past this and honed in on Ruby like a record needle skipping. Ruby was once again adorned in her powder blue coat and a work uniform, but this one was white and brown, and she smelled of coffee and cinnamon.
"My leg hurts like hell." Trav groaned, rocking back against the couch, blinking hard at the ceiling.
"Meow."
Matthias looked down. Cheese was standing at the end of the couch, peering up at him with big, green eyes, his whiskers flared forward as thought he too expected Matthias to come up with some answers.
"I stuck my head in at your place and couldn't find you." Ruby said, plopping down beside Trav, her fingers fluttering over his cast as though she could do something to the plaster. "I figured you must be over here hanging with Matt, and I knocked, but you two slept through it so I used by key." She paused her fussing to jangle a laden key chain at Matthias before tucking it into her pocket again.
Right. Matthias thought, still fighting with his missing memory. I still haven't changed the lock.
"Merwow!" said Cheese, striding back and forth across Matthias' feet, butting his head against Matthias' shins.
"Stay out of my place!" Trav grabbed Ruby's wrists, his eyes wide as silver dollars. His voice was panicked, not angry. Ruby still yelped and squirmed to get free.
"Trav, honey, what?!" Ruby gasped.
"He's right." Matthias' impulse was to leap to Ruby's aid, but he remained rooted, surprising himself with his words. "I... I don't know why but you shouldn't – we shouldn't – go over there, but just... don't."
Ruby frowned worriedly and slipped her wrists from Trav's grip. "You two do not seem okay. Should I call someone?" She pulled her phone from her coat pocket and tapped the screen, her brow creased. "No bars? What?"
Matthias' patted his own back pocket, not finding his phone. A memory flashed, brief and intense as a slap. His hand going slack, his phone falling from his numb fingers to Trav's floor. Why had he dropped it? One thing he was certain of, he wasn't about to go pick it back up.
Voices and footsteps in the hall outside grabbed everyone's attention. Matthias couldn't tell what was being said, but calm male and female voices drifted in before slipping away as their owners moved down the stairs. "That's probably the Carmichaels heading to work." Ruby said, returning her attention to her phone screen.
Matthias shot Trav a questioning look. He wished he could shake the jumpiness, the disorientation. "Who?"
"Amber's family." Trav said. His expression still had a far away quality, as though he wasn't quite seeing either of the people there with him.
Ruby set down her phone and reached for the Playstation controller. She pressed the central power button, but there was no whir of the wakening machine, no blinking lights. Her full lips twisted in confustion. "Is it unplugged?"
"It shouldn't be." Matthias leaned to see the cords running to the wall.
"What's that?" Trav sat forward, catching both their attention.
Matthias pulled Cheese onto his lap and listened. "It sounds like a kid crying." He was on his feet before he could think, cat still in his arms. The instinct of an elder sibling propelled Matthias to the door and out onto the landing before the others could react. Once there he was certain the sound was a child crying. Still holding Cheese Matthias descended into the lobby, and subsequently into the dark. It was so dim downstairs that he nearly tripped several times, but be pressed on. Cheese was quiet in his arms as though he approved of Matthias' course of action.
The lobby was wrong. Matthias skipped to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, wrapping both arms protectively around the cat. Gone was the old paint and the feet-smell, replaced with walls of stone grey and a smell like death. He choked on his first breath, Cheese sneezed expressively and flattened his ears.
"Who are you?" There were people in the lobby. Of course there were. One of them addressed Matthias in a stern tone. He was a tall, broad shouldered man with a trim beard who gave Matthias a quick, appraising glance before returning his attention to the stone wall before him. Matthias gaped. Where the front door should have been instead there was a flat wall of heavy stones with chipped mortar between as though it had been that way for years.
The other silhouette in the dark shifted and solidified into a slender woman with gentle features who was holding little Amber in her arms. The girl was crying, and wiping running nose of the woman's shoulder, but she stopped for a moment when she saw Matthias, or rather, when she saw Cheese. "Kitty?" she squeaked.
"What the hell is going on?" The man demanded. He prowled back and forth before the wall as though he had somehow missed the door and if he passed by again it would be there. "When could this have happened?"
A chill seared up Matthias spine and he nearly dropped Cheese. He remembered now. It struck him like lightning and rocked him back on his heels like a physical blow. The black powder, the smell of decay, the stone wall. His missing memory slotted into place and he knew what had happened in Trav's apartment. He knew what had happened the day that Trav and Ruby had brought him a couch. His knees went rubbery and it was all he could do to keep himself from crumbling into a useless pile. He wanted nothing more than to do just that. Maybe put his head in his hands until it all went away. But he couldn't. He had to react. He had to explain it to these people, somehow. It felt like his fault because he'd seen this before and had someone forgotten. "I'm- I'm Matthias from the second floor," was all he could think to say.
Neither of the adults answered. The man kept pacing the wall and the woman rocked Amber on her hip looking worried. "Who could have done this?" the woman addressed the space around her more than either of the men.
It was the black powder that smells like death. Matthias stood quiet, watching the man prowl. He didn't know what to do and his mind wasn't working. Cold was leeching into him right through his work coat as though it wasn't there. He tucked the warm cat against his chest, breathing steam breath onto Cheese's ears.
Someone touched Matthias elbow and he jumped, imagining the reaching black gunk. He looked down into the hazel eyes of Ruby, who had appeared beside him. She scanned around the lobby and gasped. "Oh no." Her breathing had picked up and her already pale face was growing whiter under her freckles.
"Ruby?" Matthias found his voice again.
"I've.. I've seen this. I forgot somehow." She clasped her hands, wringing her fingers taughtly.
"You've seen this?" Amber's mother turned, her eyes intense even in the darkness.
"In Trav's apartment. I...forgot somehow. And there was this black stuff..." Her voice trembled and she stepped back, tense like she wanted to flee.
"Trav's?" The woman's brows came together.
The prowling man turned, his eye gaze like fire. Matthias flinched away from it even though it wasn't aimed at him. "Travis knew about this?" He snapped.
"I... I don't know. He never said anything. I never... I didn't remember." Ruby's eyes were going glassy and Matthias guessed she was battling the same fog that was fighting to overtake his mind. It was already trapping him in place like someone holding his ankles. He should move. Maybe run back upstairs, maybe try a window, but he stood like stone, still clasping Cheese.
"You BOTH knew about this?" The man snarled. His arms tensed and Matthias could tell he was muscular, even under his heavy, canvas, work coat.
"I didn't remember," Ruby repeated quietly. She had withdrawn into herself, moving slightly behind Matthias, as though he could protect her from anything.
"That no good son of a-"
"Ben!" The woman scolded, cupping her hands around Amber's ears.
"Cas, this is insane! Someone came in the night and walled up the only door out of this place and somehow it has to do with that idiot boyfriend of hers." The man, apparently called Ben, waved his arms expressively.
Matthias wanted to say something. He wasn't even certain whether it would be in Trav's defense or not, but the smell was overpowering and he suspected that if he opened his mouth all that would come out would be vomit. His stomach was taught as a fist, and it wasn't just with nausea. His instinct when people were angry was to shrink back and stay quiet. Perhaps it was the impulse of the middle child. Just vanish for a while and come back with things had settled down.
"There's a fire escape." Cas said, pressing Amber's head into her shoulder. She adjusted her daughter on her hip and juggled her phone from her purse. "I still don't have any bars. I can't connect to the internet either." She held her phone up, aiming it around the room as if seeking a signal.
Ben fairly snarled. "I shouldn't have to use a fire escape to leave my own house for work! I don't know what Travis did but-"
The building rumbled, grey stone shaking under their feet. Amber started crying in earnest, burying her face in her mother's neck. Cheese yowled and wriggled in Matthias' arms. Scrambling free and he retreated for the stairs and Matthias wished he could do the same.
No longer holding Cheese Matthias reached for the wall to steady himself, but snatched his hand back the moment it touched. The stone was burning cold and as he pulled his hand to his chest his palm was already an irritated pink.
"What the fuck is going on?" Ben sounded more desperate than angry this time as the building tremored and the cold seeped in until they were all exhaling puffs of steam. "An earthquake in Wisconsin? That's impossible I-"
"We should go." Ruby's voice was small, barely audible over the rumble. All Matthias could think of was the image of a tower being struck by lighting. He thought of the chunk missing from this building's roof and his heart rate kicked up an extra notch.
"We need the fire escape!" Ruby asserted, louder this time.
She must have shaken something loose because Ben and Cas headed for the stairs. Matthias could climb or get out of their way and he chose to climb. They charged up in a jumble, the darkness and cold following them, the walls still made of the grey stone with flecks of black powder seeping between like clusters of ants.
Someone grabbed Matthias' hand. Their grip was ice and it took willpower not to yank his hand away. He turned to see Ruby behind him, her free hand pointed at the ceiling. Matthias didn't want to follow her gesture, but he did, and immediately wished he hadn't. The black powder that had spread above them from Trav's door coated the ceiling, flowing and twitching its way downward like a river into the lobby. Matthias' stomach turned and his whole body rattled with a chill. He fought to keep his feet moving as his body wanted him to double over and choke. Ruby let go of his hand as she nearly overtook him and she gave his shoulder a meaningful push. "Come on, Matt!"
Matthias surged upward again and they reached the landing where it was no less cold and the smell was still permeating the air. The walls were drenched in streaks of black like paint running down. Matthias traced the path of the evil river above, and found it seeping from the top of Trav's door. It was reaching across over their heads and leaking into Matthias' apartment through the top of his door. "Shit." He breathed, his progress once again stalled.
"Why are we stopping?" Ben's voice demanded from a few steps down. "Get to the fire escape!"
"Trav's still in there." Matthias pointed at his closed door, unable to bring himself to open it.
"I'm sure he's fine. Keep moving." Ben shoved past, heading for a heavy, metal door Matthias had ignored. It had an 'emergency escape' sign and supposedly lead to the external fire escape. Matthias had never tried it, but he saw right away that no one would be opening it today either. It was nearly covered in the black stuff and stone etched across the top, sealing the door shut. Ben saw this too and withdrew, hands visibly trembling as he had reached for the latch. He swung back to face the group. "We need to try the third floor!"
Matthias leaned, almost involuntarily, towards the stairs, but stopped himself. His instinct to follow orders was overridden by the surety that the black powder was filling his apartment and Trav was still inside, barely able to hobble.
Ruby acted before Matthias could drag his hand up to open the door. He felt like he was battling a strong wind for every movement he made. Apparently Ruby fought it more easily because she pounced on the nob and shoved the door open. Matthias followed the trail of black which had nearly overtaken his room. It still traveled primarily on the ceiling and ran down the walls, which was the only reason it hadn't reached the man on the couch.
Trav had pulled himself up onto the couch and huddled with his arms wrapped around his knees as the blackness surged around him. Already patches of the grey stone stood out on the walls as though they had always been, transforming Matthias pineapple-walls into those of some ancient fortress. "Trav!" Ruby shouted, but she stopped herself, eyeing large, twitching patches of black gunk that made made it to the floor.
"For fuck's sake, let's go!" Ben joined them. He glanced around at the blackness, still sliding a pulsing its way closer to the man on the couch. Ben leaned onto the balls of his feet and Matthias watched the man's dark eyes, the same almost-black as Ambers, as he traced a path through what remained of visible hardwood floor. "Get out of there, Travis!"
"I can't," Trav answered, his huge eyes tracing the same route Ben was considering. "I- I don't even have my crutch."
"Ben, we need to go." Cas crammed herself onto the landing, shoulder to shoulder with Matthias.
Amber grabbed at Matthias' jacket collar. "Mattisis!"
Unconsciously he reached up and took her little hand, the only warm thing in the world.
Ben bounced on the balls of his feet, gritting his teeth. Matthias wanted to haul him back, even as he was glad that he was not the one expected to dive into the room. Cas reached for Ben's arm, but he said "Take Amber upstairs, I'll be right there," and darted into the room. His heavy work boots were steal-toed and dotted with splatters of paint, but he still managed to dance artfully around each grasping tendril that slithered towards him across the floor like a living being.
He reached the couch with impressive speed. "Let's go!" Ben grabbed Trav's arm.
Travis did not looked entirely pleased to be saved and Matthias didn't know if it was the situation or person he didn't trust, but he allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. Ben pulled Trav's arm over his impressive shoulders and headed for the door where Ruby leaned in, arms outstretched as though she was leaning over the side of a a ship to pull them both from the water.
Matthias and Cas were crowded out of the doorway to make room. He cut a sideways glance at the woman beside him, who was watching her husband with an intense expression on her striking face. It was clear she had no intent of going upstairs, even with their daughter in her arms. Matthias still held Amber's little hand, and she did not try to pull it away. Instead she clasped it like a teddy bear, tucking his knuckles under her chin.
Ben and Trav got half way back to the door before a slim tendril of the powdery black reached tentatively towards them. At first it seemed exploratory, like a curious animal, but then it whipped towards Ben's boot with a speed that made Matthias and Cas gasp as one. Ben yelled as the black wrapped around his foot. Even from where he stood Matthias could see his boot give way like ice slashed with hot water. Ben stumbled, but managed to catch himself with his other foot. He drove onward as like someone battling a wave to reach shore.
Matthias abandoned Amber's hand and leaned into the door with Ruby. They grabbed whatever they could reach. Sleeves, hoods, arms. Together then yanked Ben and Trav from the room. Matthias slammed the door on the whole mess and without a word the group turned to run and limp their way up the stairs, heading for the third floor.
On the third floor landing they reconnected with Cheese. Matthias had Trav's arm around his shoulder, with Ruby supporting her boyfriend's other side and the threesome nearly tripped over the cat. Cheese strutted back and forth yelling at the top of his cat lungs.
"Someone check on Mrs. Penny," Ben commanded as he brought up the rear of their retreat. Even though he limped, he was as commanding as a general in battle. "Cas and I will work on the fire escape."
Matthias reacted this time, glad the tugging lethargy from downstairs seemed to be releasing him at last. He unhooked Trav's arm from around his neck and looked across at Ruby. "Got him?"
"Yeah. Go." Ruby nodded, her expression more fierce and less fearful already.
Matthias pounded on Penny's door, scanning the ceiling and walls around them for signs of the black stuff. So far it seemed to be seeping downward and across the hall rather than up. Cheese added voice to the situation by standing on Matthias' feet and calling in his impressive cat voice. Behind Matthias he heard the clatter and creak of old metal and icy, outdoor air blasted his neck. This was the kind of wind his work coat protected him from. Downstairs the cold hadn't seemed to notice what he was wearing and seeped straight into his bones.
"Fucking shit!" Ben snarled behind him as Matthias knocked on Penny's door, the little sign telling him to "wipe your paws" bouncing.
It took Penny several long minutes to appear, with Matthias' knocking growing steadily more intense. He was about to turn and ask Ruby to use her key to break in when the door opened. Cheese let out a little chirp and darted a blinking Penny into the apartment. Penny looked up at Matthias, then around him at the others gathered in a panicked clump on her landing. "What on earth is going on out there? I was showering." Her hair was tucked into a towel balanced on her head and she was wrapped in a flowered bathrobe that was too big on her, dragging on the floor like a train.
"The fucking fire escape is broken," Ben interrupted, too loud.
Matthias heard more clanging, but focused his attention on Penny. "Are you alright?"
"Of course, Matt. Why wouldn't I be? Is there a fire?!"
Matthias blinked. Why wouldn't she be fine? Why wasn't he? He was one hundred percent certain he was very much not fine, but a fog was falling to rest over his thoughts like a veil and he was losing his grip on what had started his heart thundering. "I-"
"We were downstairs and – Matthias, move." Ruby ordered before shouldering past him, half dragging Trav with her. "I need to set him down."
"Alright, everybody in. I need to know what's going on." Penny planted her hands on her hips. "Is there a fire? Gas leak? What's going on?"
Matthias was buffeted aside again as Ben and Cas obediently followed Ruby's example and left Matthias in the doorway, wondering why he was standing there to begin with.
"Come on, son." Matthias looked down as Penny's warm hand closed around his and she guided him into the room. Her presence was decidedly calming, and her attitude was concerned but steady as a rock, even though the only human in the room smaller than her was Amber. Penny arranged everyone in her home and stood like a queen surveying messengers who had come to share bad news of her kingdom. "Alright, talk to me."
*****
Author's note. I feel like this section will have more typos and be slightly choppier than usual. I wrote this one in short fits and starts, so I hope it flows okay, but it probably doesn't. Haha. Things are ramping up and serious danger is happening + the final characters are in the picture at last! As always, remember that this is a first draft, but I am always open to thoughtful critique!