Halls Of Residence
Jack M Brown

 


1


Well that was a crap party: full of sweltering flesh, drink-drive like chat-ups and poor Mafioso try-alikes. Nobody getting off with anybody and me in the centre, trying to come to terms with the guttering choke of the loud rap and the so-called rhythm and blues, in between trying to bum-dance a stranger and drink a triple vodka and coke (buy one get one free). Damn it’s cold outside.

Not much different in the lift where the walls are covered in cave paintings of blood and newspaper cuttings which have been pissed on by an angry critic. Good job I’m only on the fourth floor: I don’t have to hold my breath for long. The doors swing open and I escape.

Crabby the homeless guy is stretched out on the floor with part of the newspaper cuttings from the lift acting as a makeshift duvet. It’s 2 a.m. or something – past his bedtime. I try my best not to disturb the snoring old man. How the hell did he get here? (Been there for years; He’s just passing through; Couldn’t give a shit). I don’t know.

Tired, exhausted, I’m too lazy to use the key so I kick my door in until I can safely get through. The repulsive smell of three month old washing, a seven month old loaf of bread stuffed in the cupboard, a pizza from last week slithering over the computer keyboard and the corner that Crabby’d once used as a toilet. Other than the sign by the sink (Warning: Asbestos – do not disturb), I have nothing to worry about. Just a nice old bed to relax in and the rest of the night and early morning to sleep through. Hell, the first lecture too.

Nothing will disturb me. Except that scream…and it’s not the fire alarm. I mouth a bad word and think nothing of it, trying to drift into peaceful unconsciousness. Another scream and I keep my eyes open. I won’t be able to shut them for quite a while now. What the hell could that be?

Lifting my drunken body up out of bed’s difficult so I roll out onto the floor and crawl as best I can; commando style through the war-zone that is the ground ridden with clothes and unmentionables, until I reach the door. I get to my feet and wobble into the hallway, ready to point a finger at whoever’s there and shout till my lungs hurt. Instead of a familiar face it is one not so familiar, one more repulsive than the gathering of the Munster convention combined that usually queue in the diner. With repulsed surprise I topple over Crabby who wakes up violently, whacking me round the cheek with an old shoe that he keeps to hand.

The beast starts its approach and the trolley lodged in its way won’t act as a barrier for long.

2


Scramble! The repulsive beast of rancid gore marches forth, fumbling its bloodied fingers with the shopping trolley while I try my best to get to my feet by pushing Crabby out of the way. In such a sweaty state of drunkenness, nothing feels quite right: the screams, the shouts and the low grumble of guttering breath from the hairy monster (whatever the hell it is), it all feels wrong. All I can think of is to run, but I’m practically cornered in the hallway. Crabby is lost to the haze and mist from where the horror lurches, so without further ado, I kick the farthest door in and make my presence known to whoever’s inside.

Flowber: I always hated that name. No wonder then that between breaths I clamber over the fat bastard’s bed that is ridden with half-eaten packets of digestives and chocolate bourbons to reach the far door as quickly as I can. Another kick – the beast is right behind.

Into the opposite and practically identical hallway, one of the residents has been woken up by the ruckus and has come to see what’s going on. Blind as a bat without his glasses, he can only stare as I turn the corridor back towards the elevator while he is jumped by the fiend and taken to the floor in a heap of rotting flesh oozing and seeping away. Janitor’s gonna have a fun time tomorrow morning. The elevator opens and I hold my breath again to enter – the bloodied walls now seem to have reason but I couldn’t care less.

My mind wanders as I wait for myself to press a button. I look through the kitchen door (off its hinges, never to be repaired) and see the mounting problem of the dishes. Best get to work on them tomorrow, I suppose. There’s a promise I won’t keep.

With a great effort, Crabby slams himself into the side of the elevator and keeps his eyes closed as I remember to press for the ground floor. He’s hugging himself as if cold, as if…as if…Hell, who is he anyway? And why does he sleep on the fourth bloody floor?

Then terror. His eyes explode in a darting and ravenous fashion, his teeth clatter, his fingers outstretch and claw at the air; I see the blood gushing out of his shoulder with a wincing glare and I wonder how much it hurts. What the hell’s wrong with him now? He charges at me like a ram and I push the bastard away but he keeps coming. The pulleys on the lift shake and groan as we slam against the sides. The doors open and I push the git into a horde of nastiness, all moping around yet now spurned on by the sight of my fair complexion (my inebriation is irresistible to ladies and lads alike).

The doors close and I catch a breather: going up.

3


I loosen my shirt: fucking stuffy. Right, what to do, what to do? I rub my hands together like it’s going to help and ponder the possibilities while I flick some droplets of blood from my jacket (always wanting to look my best). I nudge the eighth floor with my knuckle – seems like a good idea. A fit lady lives up there that I know of. I think it was eighth.

Jessica: that’s her name. Fabulous arse if I remember correctly: an eye-magnet in the dinner queue, so much so that every guy and the odd girl are courteous to let her skip ahead in the line. Good job she knows my name otherwise the ‘chance’ encounter would hit an iceberg and sink to the bottom of the ocean – right now I can’t think of anyone better to share the apocalypse with. One hand round a delicious cocktail and the other round a putty-like buttock, watching the horrors mingle below. Ah, perfection.

Did I leave the gas on? I have an odd feeling that I started cooking something before I fell into my bed. I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Too late now either way.

The elevator stops at number eight, shakes a little and pings like a maths student on sugar. Trust me, they’re not pretty. Then the real screaming begins and it’s the bloody fire alarm blaring like a bastard, whining hard until everyone who’s not dead are up and out of bed and chucked into the cold night outside. Paying zero attention, I turn left and meet the corridor where the lovely lady lives. Banging on her door wouldn’t be proper given the desperate situation so I kick it in like all the others.

She’s trying her best to get into a blue dressing gown, wiping her long brown hair over an ear and mumbling annoyances. Startled, she stares at me and I grab her hand to pull her away. “We’ve got to go up,” I proclaim, tugging her towards the stairs (the elevator conks out with the alarm blaring) and I put my foot on the first step. She tugs away fearfully and I lose the grip. “No! Get away from me! It’s a fire alarm – we’ve got to go down!” She’s screaming over the alarm but I shake my head, taking a few more paces upwards. “You don’t want to go down.” It’s cold out here on the steps and she’s shivering while everyone else on the floor makes their way downwards. The fools. “Trust me.”

A car explodes into flames from the road, charring the flesh of the three passengers in an instant of bloody revulsion: a young chav father and mother, one with a baseball cap and lots of bling, the other with heavy makeup and huge sagging breasts; a tape playing deafening beats; a baby sits in the backseat, playing with an earring while it screams to high heaven as the fire gorges on its youth. The flesh is torn apart and licked up off the streets (what’s left of it) by the monsters that are gathering below.

It convinces her to do as I say but time is running out.

4


With the shouts and throwing-ups all around us, I pull Jessica and myself up step after step, seeking sanctuary as disgruntled half-asleep students mope past, attracted by the fire alarm like vibrations to snakes, and slither their way downstairs towards the living dead that await their juicy flesh and stringy innards. The bitter winter air gnaws hard at my joints as I pass forgotten laundry dropped by someone, sometime, soaked in tasteless decay.

My fears are confirmed: I did start cooking something before I went to bed, I thought I did. A huge explosion of flame rockets about the fourth floor, rushing through the doors I kicked in, burning everything, setting the unforgettable horrors alight that got left in their mindless confusion; the building supports tremble as the fireball shoots through all of the windows and crumbles the reinforcement that keeps the next floor from tumbling down. There’s a weightlessness under my feet as everything crashes towards the ground. Jessica holds on for dear life (that’s it darling) and we feel the air whoosh up through the stairs, throwing countless still-meandering students out over the barriers and down onto the stony grounds below (it’s not breakfast time yet).

The building wants to topple over but it can’t quite find the angle and stays where it is: one floor shorter than usual and glad for the hair cut.

I’d closed my eyes, scrunched them up in true terror, but now it’s all over. I open them to screams and Jessica is being pulled away by a scar-faced monster: Flowber. Flowber: I always hated that name. What’s left of him bites a chunk out of the lovely-bottomed-lady’s ankle and I roar (I saved her for a reason). I leap and tackle the brute, push him against the railing and I send a hurtling fist up against his chin, tearing some surprisingly loose skin under his blubbery beard. Not seeming to have liked it, he tries to counter another, but it sends him flying over the barrier and down into the death-pit below. I watch as he flails his arms hungrily until he splatters against the stone, pumping blood out in a surge of pattering juice.

I come to my Jessica’s aid and she’s shivering, sweating, yet smiling. I smile back: not the most romantic of situations, especially with a gnawed ankle that’s seeping blood into a puddle and sending it dripping down to the ground floor (I’ve had worse), so without further ado I lean closer. She responds worse than any other, tightly gripping my bottom lip with her teeth and wrenching the flesh from my jaw, spattering her monstrous eyes with my crimson. I scream, “Bitch!” as best I can and fall backwards over the railing. There’s nothing I can do and thank God that I’m drunk or I would have gripped the horrific situation sooner and I can’t say I would have liked that.

Well that was a crap party.
      
      
      

 

 

Copyright © 2004 Jack M Brown
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"