The Building Rose Ramshackle

The building seems to rise ramshackle from the ground, each plank sprouting like a wooden worm from rain-soaked ground, to overshadow our approach. The grey sky brought a dreich dullness to the whole scene which was punctuated only by the sounds of the crunching grush under our boots and the slow drip of water which slipped from the building’s makeshift guttering. A scattering of dead grass completed the scene, its yellowing tufts rooted in the few patches of ground not turned grey by gravel.

Our walk up the path reached the door, and I rested a hand on the scratched plastic doorknob which jutted from a splintering hole in the wood. It turned stiffly as I made to enter. I motioned towards you, silent, and you brought your hand up to your hip, pushing back your jacket to get at the gun tucked away beneath it.

The door gave quickly, and I stumbled forward before a hand clamped to my shoulder, stopping my fall. I reached up to grasp it and felt the familiar lines of the back of your hand. A smile worked its way across my face before being pushed quickly aside by thoughts of the job ahead and I rested my free hand against the inside of the doorframe, steadying myself. Another hand latched around my ankle.

It pulled. I fell, backward this time, headbutting you in the stomach before slamming down against the gravel path outside. My head felt as if someone was screaming obscenities inside it and all I could feel was the gravel underneath it. My eyes, unfocused by pain, could only roughly make out the shape of something moving and then a fresh pain pierced my legs before slowly clambering its way up to my gut. The pain tore apart my voice whenever it tried to escape. You were nowhere to be seen.

Wings of darkness unfurled above me, hiding the featureless sky in front of my eyes with an equally empty view, and I felt the pain skewer me below my ribs just as I managed to squeeze a whimper from my mouth. Then the pain clambered higher and my lungs collapsed, half-hearted, in my chest.

Two shapes, yellow as the dead grass, formed fangs above my eyes. I wondered, briefly, why I could see them in this void; why, lungless, I was still aware enough to see anything at all. But watch I did. I followed their progress, slow, steady, ever so patient, as they grew larger, or nearer, to my wide eyes. Everything smelled of a putrid wet dog whose rotting mouth was filling slowly with sewage.

My eyes closed as the pain pinched my throat shut. I still saw the fangs though, dripping now with the sewer water, in my mind, coming gradually closer, a creeping constant in the dark. There was nothing but the pain and the darkness, the hand and the dead dog reek. Something pulled at my shoulder, and everything tore.

Formless grey burned; my chest, my legs, my stomach all burned. I forced my eyes open, and you were there, standing silent with a smoking pistol and a grim stare. I felt the spattering of fresh rain. You held my shoulder tight.