The Ground Floor
(To Name Evil Means Inviting It In.)
Natalie could not wake him. She had laid her son across the bed in the room he had been using and had tried everything short of slapping him. The fear had begun to consume her. They needed to leave, and she had been preparing to pack their few belongings when the dawning realisation that something was deathly wrong with her child took hold.
She had examined him, carefully checking him for any signs of injury, but had found none. His breath was shallow but regular. His pulse was strong. If it were not for the fact that he would not wake up she’d have no cause for concern.
Other than husband had made a surprise visit.
The young mother could not process how quickly everything had changed. An hour ago Natalie was on the cusp of finding a new life. She had people around her who could have been friends. Her son had found someone who had already become one, and she may have someone who could have been special to her too. One moment she had been conversing with the girl from upstairs, a pleasant girl who had made questionable choices in life, the next her son would not wake and her husband had invaded her new home.
One moment it was light and laughter, the next abandonment.
Where had it all gone? Where had all the people gone, for that matter?
There had never been silence in Gatehouse Apartments. Since they had arrived there had been subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle sounds, Barbara and her husband talking in the foyer, and the sound of unending martial arts movies. There were also the sounds of settling that she heard in many old buildings and still more sounds that she now only knew existed because of their absence.
She had never heard silence since she had moved here, but now the lack of sounds made her ears ring. Her jaw ached through clenching her teeth together in concentration, and she had found herself mumbling under her breath to break the silence.
Through it all, Matty lay motionless and as silent as the grave-like atmosphere that had rapidly descended around her. She busied herself with packing. She didn’t intend to take anything with them, but she needed something to do while she waited for Matty to stir, and when he didn’t by the time she had finished the work, she had little else to do except be afraid.
If she could find a phone she could call for a taxi, and then it would be just a couple of trips to clear out everything. The alternative would be to carry Matty and any belongings they needed through the unfamiliar and darkened streets until they found safety.
She left Matty on the bed, the suitcases beside him, and returned to the corridor. She could watch the door to the apartment as she kicked down every door in the building to find what she needed.
With a plan in mind, she felt more in control.
The first door she came to put paid to any plan. It was Apartment 106, Charles “Chaz” Holder’s place. According to the girl from upstairs, he was an ex-cop with a liking for martial arts movies, but the apartment behind the door was silent as Natalie hammered against it.
Impatiently she barely waited between her attacks. Then the frustration overtook her and she hammered the door again with the heel of her hand. Striking the wood so hard that pain from the contact ran from her wrist to her elbow. The door rattled, and then something broke. The door swung inward, and Natalie stood dumbfounded at what it revealed.
Her son could have told her that 106 was a shell. He could have told her that no one could live there. Matty knew so much about Gatehouse Apartments now, far more than he would ever have wanted to. But Natalie would not have believed him. She barely believed in her own eyes.
Walls were partially constructed, and pipes were bare. Electrical cables hung where lights should have been and there was no indication that anyone had ever lived there.
Natalie didn’t step inside, instead, she turned to the next door where Gail Mellor and Charlie lived, but she received the same reception. With each door, her confusion grew until she stood in front of the door to Apartment 103.
This door was already open, and she could see Lucas’ small neatly presented room. There was the small kitchen, and beyond that the desk and couch, the papers spread across the floor between them. On the bookshelf were copies of The Bible alongside commentaries and thick leather-bound copies of The Apocrypha. From where she stood she could make out the gilt-pressed letters.
She had to get to Matty, but a moment wouldn’t hurt.
Natalie stepped into the tiny apartment. It took no more than five steps to get to the desk. Beside it, she could see the books on the bookcase. Some spines were marked in languages she had no hope of understanding. Natalie picked up one of the pages that littered the floor. It was covered in small, neat handwritten text, interspersed with diagrams. On the desk was a diary stuffed with loose pages. She opened it, and the pages inside were the same as those strewn across the floor. She collected the pages and placed them with the book. The act was automatic, a mother’s instinct developed after many years with an untidy husband. She knew the pages had some importance. She had seen her son with them earlier, and they had been discarded around his unconscious form when she had found him.
The door to the bedroom was opposite. It was open, so she stepped through. The bed was neatly made, small, and sandwiched between another bookcase and a bedside table. The bookcase she ignored because the bedside table, or what was on it, had taken all of her attention.
The photograph was black and white, but that didn’t matter. There was one person in it who was easily recognisable because she only ever wore black. Beside her was a woman whom Natalie also recognised, and between them was a young boy.
Natalie knew all three, even the boy, though she had only seen him as an adult.
She sat down on the bed. She hadn’t intended to, but her legs would no longer support her. All the blood in her body had rushed to her head. She felt dizzy with it.
She stared at the photograph. She could not understand what it implied. There was no way it could be true. She took a moment to collect herself. She knew why Matty was not waking. She could not put it into words, she feared that if she did she might begin to rant incoherently. She rose on unsteady feet and made her way back out of the apartment and along the corridor, picking up the book and loose pages before she did. She felt her self-control was at its limit, and the things she noticed along the route back to her apartment didn’t help.
The walls were cracked and the paint had worn off. Dirt was smeared into the wall where shoulders had brushed it over many years, and the carpet was worn almost all the way through in a trail along the centre of the hallway.
This could not be Gatehouse Apartments, but it could not be anywhere else.
She saw something from the corner of her eye. A small dark movement that may have been nothing more than a mouse. But she had seen nothing like it in Gatehouse Apartments. She had not seen as much as a spider since she’d arrived.
Natalie entered the apartment she shared with her son. She allowed her eyes to wander over the room as she swept through, at least here it seemed nothing had changed. Everything still appeared fresh and new, barely lived in. Matty was where she had left him, as were the bags, but now all thought of leaving had left her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hand reaching out and taking her sons. It was cool to the touch, but not cold enough to cause her concern.
The boy in the picture was about the same age as her son, a little younger than the girl. It was obvious to her who he must have been. Some people change very little with age, and this boy was one such person. His older self still had the same sad, expressive eyes. His smile was still uncertain, and his expression was still lost.
Who the boy was, was unmistakable, but it was also still impossible, but that word no longer meant what it once did to the young woman.
Natalie still held the book in her hand, the loose pages caught within it. It was a diary with a cloth cover frayed at the edges. The dust of many years had settled into the fibres, and there was a black smudge about the same size as a thumbprint on the middle of the front cover.
She opened it, pulling the loose pages free to start from the first entry. The date printed at the top of the page had been crossed out with a single neat line, and no new date had been added.
Natalie began to read.
This was once a diary that belonged to a little girl, she had tired with it quickly but her entries were happy and filled with hope. I read those pages and tore them out. They made me angry but I couldn’t decide with whom. Was I angry at the little girl for being happy? Have I become so petty?
The diary was in a bag of things in one of the empty apartments. There were a few toys in there, assorted clothes and I considered giving the toys to the children but it felt wrong. At first, I told myself it was because my children deserved better than cast-offs, but then I began to wonder.
The bag had been nice. I think I recognised the designer, but I can’t remember the name. Inside it, the clothes had been folded neatly, and the toys had been placed between them as if to protect them from breaking.
I don’t think it had been discarded or abandoned, I think it may have been forgotten in a rush to leave.
This possibility has made more and more sense to me. The world around my family has become rotten. The building itself sags with it. The children can see it, I can see it, but I don’t think he can.
I have hidden this journal, and I pray to the god I no longer believe in that he ever finds it. I do not believe I will survive if he does, but I have to leave something.
Each day the darkness gathers, and each day it grows more oppressive. The children feel it, though they have not spoken about it to me, and they certainly would never speak about it to him. They barely look at him anymore, and I can barely bring myself to either. He must still have something in him that’s still human because he still seems to care what others think of him. Not us, never us, but other people whom he wants to use for some purpose. We are props in his theatre. People see us and they think better of him. That’s the only reason we are still here at all.
I just reread what I just wrote, the words stood out to me. I sometimes wonder whether we’ll be here another day. I can’t believe I’m finally saying it. I feel like a monster. I should have run long ago. The children don’t deserve it. I want to say I don’t deserve it, but…
They didn’t choose any of this. I didn’t either, but I haven’t done anything about it.
I can do something about it now.
He wasn’t always like this. The change was slow at first. At first, I even thought the change was for the better. He was working hard and we had a place of our own. But then he was spending more time at work than he did at home, at least that’s what I thought he was doing.
He used to care about his safety, and he would be good to those he thought could hurt him, but even that has gone now. Since he met CJ he’s no longer afraid of anything.
I’m not writing names down in this book. It’s not to protect anyone, they don’t need protection from the likes of us, I don’t want to write names because to name Evil means inviting it in, and I want to write this to keep some spark of good alive in what we have left.
Only two people will be named in this book, my beautiful children.
Charlotte, who is growing so fast. She scares me with her strength. She looks at him with angry eyes, and I am scared he’ll notice her hatred of him and do something about it.
And then there is Lucas…
Natalie slapped the book closed. She stared at its threadbare cover. In places, the cloth had been worn through to the cardboard beneath. The corners of which sprouted little tufts of worn fabric. She turned it over. There was less dust on the back cover as if it was left somewhere undisturbed for a long time. She remembered the conversation she had with Lucas. It seemed like a long time ago, but it had been no more than an hour.
His mother and sister died when he was a child, and he had been away for many years, years in which this book had laid in wait for him.
She opened the book again, this time further in.
It took a while for me to realise that his absences coincided with the phases of the moon. It was Charlotte who figured it out if I’m being honest. She didn’t realise she had, but one night I saw her staring out of the window when she should have been sleeping, and she said she loved the full moon. When I asked why she told me it was because he was always gone.
It came to me in a flash then and I pulled out this book and checked.
Always on a full moon, he would disappear a day before to a day after, always without fail.
Honestly, I was hoping it was another woman, and that one day he would announce he was leaving, but I always knew it was something worse. He feels… I can only use the word “evil”… and though he has never done anything to hurt me or the children I can’t help but believe that’s only because it doesn’t serve his purpose to.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I’ve written about it before, but it’s come to the time I have to think about getting away. Before I didn’t have a window, but now I do. The full moon offers a chance. In four days we can get very far away. I have to check when the next one will occur.
But they didn’t make it, Natalie’s mind went to the times she had seen Gail Mellor and Charlie. She had seen Charlie far more than she had her mother. Her son had developed an attachment to the girl. Natalie had seen their likeness in the photograph and was certain the mother had written what she now read.
She couldn’t recognise any of Gail in what she read. It may have been written at a time before life had broken her. Charlie, on the other hand, was exactly as she had been described in the diary. A little girl who could run rings around most adults while having the patience of a tiny saint.
She smiled to herself at the thought of it, Charlie was good for her son, and Natalie couldn’t help but feel her heart warmed by Matty’s obvious affection for the little girl.
Then her smile faltered and died.
Natalie still struggled. There were no other explanations. Gail and Charlie Mellor were the same people the diary was written about, and Lucas was son to one and brother to the other.
Her son’s first love was a dead girl.
There, she said it, albeit in the confines of her mind. There was no way she could say those words aloud. It felt absurd enough to think of them.
There were no people to be found in Gatehouse Apartments because there were never any people to be found there. The only people she knew there were herself, her son and Ryan McMillan, who – at this moment – might be being chased by ghosts.
Natalie almost laughed at the insanity of it all.
She leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. The book was resting on her knees, and she could still clearly see it. It had seen the ravages of time, and she felt its pain at times passing. It had seen things and had been used to record things that it should not have seen. She could relate. Time etched its lessons on everything it passed.
She steeled herself against what she might find, then opened the book again, this time she didn’t read the words but flicked through the pages to where some had been torn free. Selected the loose pages she began placing them back from where they had been torn.
There was a story between those battered covers, and before she took another step she needed to understand that story.
She believed her son’s life might depend on it.