December Park

by Ronald Malfi

  Thunder shook the sky. I glanced up, wincing in anticipation of the lightning that was sure to follow. It came, breaking out far over the bay. I felt it in my back teeth.

  I swung one leg over the windowsill, braced myself, and then pulled my other leg in after me. The storm was quieter inside, but the sound of running water was all around me. I made my way down the pyramid of stone.

  When I reached the floor, I shined the flashlight around the room. Adrian was not here. Clutching the flashlight more tightly, I felt claustrophobia creep up and worm its long, cold fingers around my throat . . .

  Peter appeared in the window. He swung his legs in and maneuvered down the pyramid of stone and joined me. “This place is filling up with water.”

  Rainwater spilled from the cracks in the ceiling and ran down the walls, forming small tributaries on the floor. The fissures in the stone swelled like overflowing rivers. I followed one capillary of water along a seam in the floor until it eventually emptied into the large crater in the middle of the big room.

  I panned the flashlight along the walls while my eyes adjusted to the depths around us.

  “God,” Peter said.

  I froze when the light fell on something just a few feet away from the nearest doorway. Peter sucked in his breath.

  It was Adrian’s backpack. The Incredible Hulk snarled at us, his big green face dusted in a fine white powder.

  Peter picked the backpack up and turned it over in his hands. The zipper was busted, and all the contents must have fallen out, because it was empty. Peter’s mouth narrowed to a lipless gash when he saw that one of the shoulder straps had been torn loose. When he looked at me, his eyes were terrible.

  “Adrian?” I called, my voice a weak tremolo in the vast cavern of the room. “Are you here?”

  “This place is enormous,” Peter said in a low voice. He let Adrian’s backpack fall to the floor. “He could be anywhere.”

  Adrian would have wanted to pick up where we’d left off Thursday evening: that horrible room past the showers, the one with the meat hooks hanging from the rafters and the stack of soggy mattresses that smelled like death. “Follow me. I think I know where he went.”

  We walked through the nearest door, absently stepping over Adrian’s backpack, and into the corridor. The floor and walls seemed to twist like a hallway in a fun house. There were no open windows, but rain somehow found a way in, filtering down on us as we traversed the long corridor while creating swampy black pools in the dug-out hollows of the floor.

  When I thought I caught movement at the opposite end of the hall, I called out, “Adrian!” in a pathetic croak.

  “What did you see?” Peter whispered.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.”

  The shadows all had false fronts and paper bottoms. Rattling noises behind some fallen boards turned out to be more water spilling through seams in the foundation. Other slithery sounds were certainly snakes; I glimpsed the tail of one as it vanished into a hole the size of a baseball in the floor.

  “Scott said Adrian could have broken a leg in here,” I said, partially to Peter but also to convince myself that the only dangers we might face were the broken floorboards and the falling debris.

  “Yeah,” Peter said, though I could tell he was thinking worse things, too.

  “We don’t know anything beyond that.”

  “His backpack. Adrian came in here and hasn’t come out. Something happened. Something bad.”

  “Please stop,” I whispered. “Please.”

  At the end of the corridor, we crossed into the passageway of interconnected chambers—crooked, buckling rooms that defied the constraints of construction and sanity. Pools of water spread across the floor, setting detritus afloat like garbage jettisoned from a barge. Rats piled atop the flotsam and reared up on their hind legs when I drew my flashlight upon them. Ancient hospital implements gleamed in the flashlight’s beam.

  Peter and I waded through the shin-high water. Leafy tongues of flora undulated in the heightening soup. Some of the vegetation looked like human hair fanning in the tributaries of running water. I froze, the beam of light angled on some particularly troubling strands that looked like longish waves of dark hair. Peter saw it, too, and stopped moving. I prodded something solid just beneath the surface of the pool with the toe of my sneaker. A skull, I thought.

  But it wasn’t a skull—it was a stone on which the black hairlike plant grew.

  In the adjoining room, water the color of beef gravy poured from ventilated grates in the concrete walls. A flash of lightning exploded through the breaks in the ceiling, and countless shadows jumped out from various hiding places. My sanity balanced on a vertiginous ledge.

  “I’m getting turned around,” I muttered. “I’m getting lost.”

  “It’s Stanton School. The hallways are set up the same,” Peter said, his voice blessedly calm. “We’re in the science rooms right now.”

  In yet another room, a grumbling, belching sound caused us both to freeze in midstride. The height of the water had lessened as the floor sloped toward a crater bursting through the tiles. A muddy whirlpool swirled into the crater like bathwater going down an enormous drain. As we watched, a greasy red baseball cap bobbed toward the hole, was embraced by the whirlpool, and was summarily dispatched into the opening.

  “Like flushing dead goldfish down the toilet,” Peter said.

  “Whose hat do you think that was?”

  Peter said nothing.

  As we crossed into the antechamber of shower stalls and toilets, I was struck again by the putrid reek of decay. It clotted up the humid air and created a film at the back of my throat. The storm rattled the pipes, causing the ancient shower heads to squeal as they rocked in their housings. A cacophony of frogs provided the musical score to our trespass.

  There was a scraping followed by what sounded like metal pipes clattering to the floor. A cloud of dust settled around a jumble of black iron bars that had apparently been leaning against the wall before being knocked to the floor. The culprit was a large black rat, its fur wet and matted. Its eyes glistened like two drops of India ink.

  I took a few steps toward the fallen iron bars.

  Peter came up alongside me, peering over my shoulder as I shined a light on them. “Those—”

  “Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “Yes.”

  They were the iron staves from the fence that surrounded the Werewolf House. Some of them were still capped with a decorative fleur-de-lis.

  “No way,” Peter murmured. “No way those things are in here.”

  I bent down to pick one up.

  Peter kicked my hand away. “Don’t touch ’em.”

  We kept moving. At the other end of the room we entered the narrow passage with the gouges in the walls, fire-retardant blankets, and spools of electrical wire spilling from hastily carved cavities. Opposite us, another doorway stood at a slant. I stepped over some fallen debris, the flashlight jittering in my hand, and nearly screamed when Peter snatched a fistful of my shirt.

  “What?” I blurted.

  “Don’t move. Give me the light.”

  “What did—?”

  He snatched the light from my hand and swung the meager beam toward one of the gouges in the wall. A shredded blanket swayed in the stormy breeze that invaded from the countless cracks in the building’s façade. “I thought I saw something move.”

  There were a million things that moved in here: rats, mice, bats, raccoons, possums, snakes, lizards, not to mention an infinite variety of insects. Rivulets of water coursing through the cracks made it look like the entire floor was alive. Peter could have seen anything.

  I motioned to the slanting doorway. “That’s the room with the meat hooks and mattresses.”

  “Don’t call them meat hooks,” Peter said, handing me the flashlight.

  I pressed forward down the passageway. It was more tedious now that the storm was funneling a channel of black water down the center of the creased floor.
Bits of planking surfed down the hall, knocking against my shins.

  “There,” Peter said, pointing.

  I redirected the beam of light. Even as I stared at it, I didn’t fully register what it was right away.

  The statue head. It sat in a corner against the wall, the rusted iron bar protruding from its neck.

  “That can’t be the same—”

  “It’s the same,” Peter finished. “Fuck. This is it, isn’t it?”

  I just stood there, my body a frozen plank of ice, unable to move. I listened to the storm raging outside. I listened to the water dribble in through the cracks in the foundation. I listened to the hidden rodents that scurried through the muck.

  “Angie,” Peter whispered.

  I blinked. I realized my mouth was filled with acid. I leaned over and gagged, vomiting onto the floor. Peter’s hand fell on my back.

  When I’d finished, I wiped my mouth with my arm, then ran fingers through my wet hair. “I’m okay,” I uttered, heading toward the rectangular doorway.

  Flies dive-bombed for my eyes, and I swatted them away with my free hand, keeping the tenuous finger of light trained on the doorway ahead of me. The horrid smell intensified. I held my breath and stepped through.

  I saw the stack of mattresses, the flooded floor, the crates ribboned with fingers of colored cloth, the strange metal diorama bolted to the far wall. I saw the meat hooks—

  (don’t call them meat hooks)

  —dangling from the industrial chains, too. And that was where we saw Adrian.

  He’s dead.

  Adrian was suspended upside down by one of the hooks, his arms behind his back. His face was red and swollen, and his eyes looked fused shut. His hair was a filthy snarl of kudzu, and his face was streaked with both grease and blood. The dark spots on his shirt looked like bloodstains, but I couldn’t see any wounds. Still dangling from a length of shoelace, the heart-shaped locket hung in front of his face.

  My flashlight flickered but remained on.

  Peter swallowed audibly. “Is he . . . ?”

  “Adrian,” I called, my voice a sonorous echo throughout the chamber.

  Adrian did not stir.

  I waded through the rising water and over to the stack of wooden crates. “Help me with these.”

  Peter rushed to my side but seemed confused as to what I needed him to do. He kept glancing up at Adrian’s lifeless body. When he saw me drag one of the crates over to the mattresses, he did the same. I grabbed his crate and placed it on top of mine. A switch seemed to go off behind his eyes, and he dashed back for another crate so we could complete our ladder.

  I steadied the beam of light on Adrian. From this angle, I could see that his ankles had been taped together, and it was this ring of tape through which the meat hook had been looped. If I climbed to the top of the mattress pile, I might be able to reach up and cut him down . . .

  “There’s someone else in here with us,” Peter breathed. He was hunched over one of the crates, looking behind him. “I can hear it . . .”

  “Hurry,” I told him.

  When our ladder reached four crates high, Peter steadied the base while I climbed atop the heap of mattresses—a sensation that was like crawling across the carcass of a beached whale. The fabric surrendered without protest, driving my fingers into the bedding, as my knees eased down into cool sludge. The smell was so horrible it stung my eyes and nearly made me gag. I lifted one hand, then set it down into a lukewarm porridge. Turning the flashlight onto my hand, I found I had placed my palm into a chunky custard of what at first appeared to be vomit. But then I saw that the individual chunks squirmed, and I recognized it for what it was: a puddle of writhing maggots.

  I vomited over the side of the mattress.

  Peter asked if I was all right.

  After regaining my composure, I mumbled a weak, “I’m okay.”

  Directly above my head, Adrian swayed almost imperceptibly from the chain. I swung my backpack around and found my switchblade in the small front pocket. I pressed the release button, but the blade jammed halfway out of the hilt. Feverishly, I continued pressing the button, but the blade would not shoot out any farther. Fuck it, then. It’ll still work.

  I managed to stand, the surface of the putrid, wet mattress surrendering further beneath my weight; my feet sank into it up to my ankles as the fabric came apart. I felt things moving against my flesh and squirming beneath the elastic bands of my socks, and my mind summoned images of leeches, fat squirming bloodworms, and wriggling night crawlers.

  This close, I could tell that Adrian was still alive. His breathing was audible, though labored, and I saw the hesitant expansion and deflation of his birdlike chest. The puffiness and redness of his face suggested some sort of allergic reaction. There was a dried exclamation of blood running from both corners of his mouth like a TV show vampire. He reeked of urine.

  With an unsteady hand, I began sawing through the shackle of electrical tape at Adrian’s ankles.

  “Hurry, man,” Peter called.

  I glanced down and saw him whipping his head from side to side, searching the darkness for monsters.

  “I’m telling you, there’s someone else in here.”

  “I’m hurrying.”

  “Hurry faster.”

  The tape snapped, and Adrian’s limp body dropped to the mattress headfirst. He bounced and threatened to roll off, but I caught him with my free hand. I drove one knee against the small of his back while I sawed through the tape that bound his wrists.

  Midway through the tape, Adrian moaned and stirred.

  “He’s alive!” Peter cried.

  Adrian rolled his head back. The flashlight, which I had propped in the crook of one armpit, brought into relief not only the ruined, patchy mask that was his face but also the unimaginable fear in his eyes. He gaped at me. Without his glasses, his eyes looked too small. His pupils were different sizes.

  “Adrian, it’s me. It’s Angelo. Can you move?”

  He just stared at me. When I shifted gradually to the left, his gaze didn’t follow me.

  Then he blinked, and I saw recognition filter into his eyes. His lips quivered. There was a dried crust of snot trailing from one nostril clear across the puffy terrain of his left cheek.

  “We gotta get you out of here,” I told him.

  He gripped my forearm. “He’s here.”

  “Come on.” I rolled him on his side so he could see over the edge of the mattress.

  Peter stood below, half his face masked in shadow. He reached up and grabbed Adrian by the shoulders while I pushed against the small of Adrian’s back.

  “. . . ere . . . ,” Adrian grunted as I shoved him over the side and into Peter’s embrace.

  I swung one leg over the mattress and felt my foot land squarely on the top crate.

  Peter steadied the tower of crates with one foot while holding Adrian against him. Adrian’s head was cocked awkwardly on Peter’s shoulder, his eyes like the eyes of a blind man staring off into nothingness. Insanely, I wondered if he was going to get in trouble for losing his glasses.

  I made my way down the tower of crates and landed in several inches of cold, scummy water. Outside, the storm slammed against the building. To help Peter support Adrian, I took one of Adrian’s arms.

  Adrian screamed as I touched his flesh. He recoiled, bolting fully awake, and shoved Peter away, too.

  “Adrian,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice calm, “it’s Angelo and Peter.”

  “It’s us,” Peter said.

  “Do you know?” Adrian rasped. From even a few feet away I could smell his fetid breath, as if he’d been gargling raw sewage. His gaze darted from me to Peter, then back to me.

  “Do we know what?” I said.

  “Found,” he croaked.

  I shook my head: I didn’t understand.

  “What . . . I . . . found,” he said, his voice grating up from his throat. “Found . . . them . . .”

  I heard shifting off to m
y right. I looked and saw Peter retreating slowly into the darkness. His form was nothing more than a shadow in the insubstantial glow of my flashlight. Then the form diverged into two forms, and for a second I thought my mind was breaking apart on me.

  Peter continued to back away. The diverged half of him hooked in a slow and deliberate semicircle around me. I discerned the suggestion of tapered, angular shoulders, a mat of wet, stringy hair, the flicker of a pale skull face with eye sockets like tar pits. It wasn’t that Peter’s form had split into two but that someone else had shifted out from behind him. The shape positioned itself between us and the door across the room.

  “There!” Peter shrieked, his voice splitting the silence.

  The figure extended a hand toward Adrian. There was something like a hooked blade in it. Or so I imagined.

  The following events happened so quickly yet with the dizzying torpor of a drug-fueled nightmare that to this day I am still uncertain as to the exact order of them. Each event occurred in a vacuum, suspended in its own bubble: Peter stumbled backward and fell, crashing through one of the crates that had floated away and splashing water into the air; Adrian shrieked and dropped to the floor in a fetal position; the shadowy figure darted to the right, that massive arm swinging what appeared to be a blade in a controlled arc; my flashlight blinked out.

  Someone screamed. It could have been me. I felt warm water—or some other liquid—splash across my face and sting my eyes. Blind, I staggered backward until I slammed into the spongy tower of mattresses, the rancid cushions sucking me in. Somehow I’d managed to swing the backpack around and was fumbling with it when a second scream pierced the darkness.

  When I opened my eyes, I noticed a star of yellow light. It took me what felt like an eternity to realize it was a flame. Peter stood dripping foul water, the bobbing flame of his Bic lighter shimmering like a beacon of salvation. I glimpsed Adrian’s wide, sightless eyes flash before me.