by David Wood
Craig was dazed. What the hell was this guy talking about? Fine, fuck the lift. Come up the stairs!
“And Senhor,” the voice said, now breaking up again. “That building...”
Static. “...abandoned...” Static, a strange noise.
“...and has not had a third floor in over thirty-five years...” Craig pressed the phone hard against his ear trying to hear. “...not since it burned in the fire...”
“Goodbye!”
“Welcome!”
From the living room Craig’s computer once more cried out to him. He listened for it over the roar of the fire he couldn’t see, heard it over his own hacking from the smoke that wasn’t there.
“You’ve got mail!”
Craig slithered on his stomach, the carpet clutching, scratching, clawing at his chest as he moved. His flesh burned.
As he passed through the entryway of the bedroom, the door slammed into his ribs. He shouted in pain but kept on.
Sweat poured down his forehead, the taste mixing with the copper tang of blood on his tongue.
Every bone ached, every organ burned. Still, he pressed on until he rounded the corner into the living room.
Here, too, the furnishings, the wall hangings, the boxes, everything had vanished. The laptop sat alone, open and on its side, in the middle of the living room. Craig’s eyes teared as he tried to scan the screen without moving any closer.
“You’ve got mail!”
He did. He did have mail; he could see the icon. He started crawling again furiously in the direction of the laptop.
Almost there. Within arm’s length. He reached out, stretched with every scintilla of raw energy he had left.
But before his fingers reached the keyboard the computer PINGED
and an IM popped up in the right-hand corner of the screen.
There was no name, none at all, but he didn’t need to guess at who the sender was.
Ola, Senhor Devlin, the instant message read. Enjoying your stay at the flat?
“Fuck you, cocksucker,” Craig said aloud, blood pooling on his tongue, spilling over his lips onto the floor.
PING.
Now, now, Amaro wrote. That is no way to speak to your landlord, senhor.
“Fuck you!” Craig shouted. A spray of blood spattered like window washer across the screen. “Let me out!”
PING.
Senhor, the IM read, you are free to leave whenever you want.
Across the room, the brass door handle slowly began twisting, turning, turning. The front door creaked open, slightly at first, then wider and wider until Craig could see clearly into the bleak maroon hallway.
Hope rose instantly inside of him, even as he tried to fight it. Delirious with desire, Craig could barely focus himself to move in the direction of the door. For a moment he was frozen. Then finally he collected himself and began the long painful crawl.
PING.
Craig turned his neck as far back as he could and squinted at the new message on the screen.
Of course, the message read, there are a few things to consider first. PING.
I’m afraid there are penalties for breaking the lease.
Craig swallowed hard and tried to smile. “You can keep our security deposit,” he rasped.
PING.
I doubt very much that will cover the cost of the damage you’ve done to the flat.
Craig swung his head forward again and continued moving, pain erupting in every part of his body. “Then sue me.”
PING.
Don’t look back, Craig thought. Keep heading for the door. But, of course, ultimately, he couldn’t help himself. His head twisted so far around that he felt like the little blond bitch from The Exorcist.
The new instant message read: It is not civil court you will have to worry about, Senhor Devlin.
PING.
You have just spoken to the authorities. They are on their way to our building.
PING.
And you have a dead body with numerous bite marks on the floor in your kitchen.
“I didn’t kill her,” Craig shouted.
PING.
Ah, but your memoir says you did.
Evidence. Craig’s mind fell back into lawyer mode, and he suddenly saw what a jury would see. What other explanation could a jury possibly believe? He had to clean up, had to dispose of the body, destroy the laptop...
PING.
You’ll be happy to know that your manuscript has already been sent, not just to your agent, but to Senhora Berdan’s family, as well as authorities both here in Lisboa and the United States.
Craig stared at the screen. His Inbox was open. There were replies from his agent, from Amy’s brother, even an auto-reply from the NYPD.
The screen suddenly changed to Mail Sent.
There it was in the subject line: letters from lisbon, a memoir by craig devlin.
His world sunk. What the hell could he do? If anything, this week had taught him that he could never survive confinement. Not in an apartment, not in a prison, or worse yet, a mental institution. Not in a fucking sports memorabilia store.
PING.
Of course, the instant message read, your new memoir could also serve as a suicide note.
Craig turned back to the open front door. In the distance he could hear sirens. Hide. He could hide. He could go through the bedroom wall into the flat next door and hide until he could make good his escape.
But, no. If he could leave through the other flat, he would have taken Amy and left before.
What had he seen in there?
PING.
Nothing, of course. No, that couldn’t be. PING.
You were free to leave the entire time, senhor. As was I. As was Otavio.
We, each of us, were given a choice.
“That’s not true!” Craig shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty room.
PING.
Of course, it is true, senhor. But what then? You would have lost her. Senhora Berdan would have returned to New York. You would have been left here alone.
(Just like you were in Hawaii.)
Craig’s ear began pulsing.
PING.
Left here alone with a tumor. Or an aneurism. (With an aneurism you go like that!)
PING.
And worst of all, the IM read, you would have been unable to write.
The sirens were closer now, but they were being drummed out by the pulsing in his right ear.
Suddenly the floor beneath him began to shake.
An earthquake? he thought. He flashed on Otavio’s story about Xavier, the eleven-year-old boy abandoned by his mother during the natural disaster of 1755.
Here. It had happened here. Here in this building. Here on this floor. Here in this very flat.
Amaro’s voice suddenly invaded Craig Devlin’s head.
(“All this, it is only an echo, amigo. What is happening has already happened and will happen again. You see, once an echo is released, it cannot be withdrawn, only amplified or drowned out by a new voice, such as yours.”)
The ceiling shook. Flakes began to descend upon Craig’s head.
(“It is why, amigo, the dead do not whisper. To be heard, we must scream.”)
“Why me?” Craig said, clenching his teeth. “Why you? Why Otavio?”
The sirens grew louder.
“Why?” Craig shouted. “Because we’ve had our fucking hearts broken?”
(“No, amigo. Not because our hearts were broken during our lives.”)
The pulsing more intense.
(“We were chosen because we three, like the boy Xavier before us, entered this world with broken hearts. Never wanted, never loved. We three, each of us, may as well have died in our mothers’ wombs. Because we never knew the capacity for love.”)
Craig’s mother’s voice for the final time echoed in his head: “I fucking hate you,” she said. “You should’ve never been born.”
(“We are one, amigo. We live here.”)
; Sobbing, Craig crawled on the rumbling floor toward the ice pick. He lifted it in his ruined right hand. With his left he moved the mouse, closed out of AOL,
“GOODBYE!” “GOODBYE!” “GOODBYE!”
and entered a familiar web address in the browser. Weeping, he pulled up the screen, clicked on Portugal, on Lisbon, on Housing, and finally on Post. He clicked on Apartments for Rent. Typing as quickly as his exhausted nine fingers allowed, he entered the Title, the Location, the Description. Quickly he uploaded Amaro’s photos of the flat and hit send.
The sirens now were just outside. The ceiling rained down like hail.
Grudgingly, Craig lifted again the ice pick. Pointed it. Placed the cold hard metal slowly inside his right ear.
(It’s a tumor.)
(Or an aneurism.)
Then, with all the force he could muster, Craig drove the ice pick deep into his ear canal, positioning the point upward toward his brain. Pain seared through his head, pain like the collective squeals of a billion hogs on their way to the slaughter. Pain like war. Pain like abandonment and starvation, like small rooms with locked doors.
With his left hand, Craig finally aided his right, warm blood running like a waterfall down his burning cheek.
One final glance into the black hallway. Then with all the strength he could muster, Craig slammed the ice pick home.
And the pulsating finally stopped.
Craig’s List
Aida placed two aspirin on her tongue, swallowed them down with tepid water, and stared at the monitor. Her migraine had gotten worse, probably from staring at the computer screen all morning. Luigi was in the shower, planned on heading into the office this afternoon after spending all evening out with his new friends. London was not what she had expected at all.
When she and Luigi had left Milan, it was to get him away from all his ex-girlfriends, from all the temptations. For once, even if only temporarily, she wanted him all to herself. It hadn’t worked out. And it was time to move on, this time to a city that wasn’t so contemporary, somewhere that didn’t move as fast as London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York.
Lisbon seemed just right, and she had already found a number of interesting listings. This last one sounded just perfect. The flat was located in the Alfama quarter, about as different from London as you could get. And the price, well, the price would certainly go a long way in convincing Luigi it was time to move on.
It all would be so easy this time. The ad read:
Everything you need is here. Just bring yourselves.
Just then she decided. This was it. This was the flat. As soon as Luigi stepped out of the shower, she would show him the listing. Convince him. Give him an ultimatum if she had to. Because they couldn’t go on living like this., it was hell.
As Aida gazed at the lovely images of the flat she felt her migraine beginning to subside. It’s nothing serious after all, she thought. Just another tension headache from trying to live with Luigi while he was trying to live the fast life. No more migraines once they arrived in Lisbon; she was sure of it.
“Luigi,” she called, once she heard the water from the shower stop.
He stepped out with a towel around his waist. Another was draped over his shoulder.
Why? she thought. To cover scratch marks maybe. Has he been shagging some London whore?
“What is it?” he said. They had taken to speaking only English ever since they had arrived in London. Aida wondered if Luigi would be so quick to take up Portuguese once they arrived in Lisboa.
“I found it,” she said in her diminishing Italian accent. “The perfect flat, right in the heart of Lisbon.”
Luigi shrugged. “You are sure about this? I was just beginning to enjoy England.”
“I am positive. Come on, Luigi. Let’s live in a few cities while we are still young. We will never get the chance again, I’m sure. Once we have children, we’ll have to select a city and settle down. When the time comes, I’ll let you choose any city in Europe. But for now, let’s see what awaits us in Lisbon.”
Luigi shrugged again. God, how she hated it when he shrugged. It reminded her of her mother, how indifferent (or even jealous) she was whenever Aida shared news with her of something good, something fun.
“Whatever,” he said. “It’s your father’s money, so I suppose it’s your call.”
“Grazie,” she said, then caught herself. “Or should I say, Obrigado?” She giggled a little, tossing some rogue strands of her long dark hair behind her ear. It sounded perfect. All of it. The word, the language, the city, the country. And especially the flat. She minimized the photos and scrolled down to the contact information. She clicked on the name and
began her email.
Dear Craig, she started. No.
Dear Senhor Devlin,
I am writing with regard to your listing for the flat...
The End
If you enjoyed The Flat, try The Yeti by Rick Chesler and Jack Douglas
Rick Chesler holds a Bachelor of Science in marine biology and can often be found diving, boating or traveling to research his next thriller idea. A former contractor for the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and the State of Hawaii, he currently lives in South Florida with his family, at the edge of the Bermuda Triangle. Visit him online at twitter.com/rickchesler, facebook.com/rickchesler, or www.rickchesler.com.
LAUGHING BOY'S SHADOW BY STEVEN SAVILE
My name is Declan Shea.
I never thought I was monster.
My life changed overnight. I was driving home from a gig when a tramp stepped out in front of my car. I killed him. I know I did. But no-one believed me. The medical staff at the hospital insisted he was the result of some sort of hallucination because trauma sustained during the accident. I tried to convince them otherwise, but the more I protested, the more obvious it became to them that I had damaged more than just my ribs in the crash, so I started to lie to keep them happy. I pretended he wasn't there. But he was. He was everywhere.
And he was determined to destroy my life and take away everything I loved in revenge.
How do you fight a monster no-one else can see?
This is what he reduced my life to. I am stopped being Declan Shea that night and became someone else entirely. I became a monster.
Intro. . .
My hands are my downfall. Shaped like the wings of angels their touch whispers to me words of death, not beauty. Never beauty now. I see faces in their creases. Enigmatic, contorted, hypnotic, and bleeding.Always compelling. My dead. The faces contort when my hands close into fists. My dead screaming with me, screaming through the black spread-winged bird branded into them.
I have killed.
And now I cannot sleep; demons live inside my head. I cannot forget them, my dead, and, because of the memories, I cannot forgive. Until forgiveness comes I doubt very much whether sleep ever will. The loop is ironic. Poetic and unbreakable.
I am not here seeking forgiveness for my demons. The past is done and there is little to be gained from dwelling there. I have come here looking for someone to talk to.
It is bitterly cold out here on the bridge tonight. The wind is biting, its voice another scream to haunt my ears.
This is where my world fell apart.
On this bridge.
Since then there has been someone else inside me; someone who has seen all the bad there is to see, watched it pass like so much bloodied water under this bridge.
He has been betrayed. Cheated. Lied to.
His name is Declan Shea, it is all he has left.
We are not so different that way.
My name is Declan Shea, and he is all that I have left.
I come back here to look at the lights across the water, out of reach like the gates of heaven. More than anything, I want to start walking. You won't understand what that means, not yet, but you will. . .
Theme One. . . Beggars’ Banquet
The Road to Redemption
One
Not quite three a.m. and alre
ady I had Saturday chalked up as one more in a long line of miserable experiences eager to come my way.
You know how some days have their own smells? Well, Saturday was mothballed in that rancid, mouldered smell of the meat markets.
Outside, it was raining hard. Sports cars aren’t made for rain. The Midget's soft-top was leaking and her heater had given up the ghost the week before. To add insult to injury, crossing the bridge into Gateshead, the DJslipped into that monotony of love songs aimed at helping loners through the worst of the night. Keeping my eyes open was struggle enough. I was in no mood to suffer another bout of that emotional bullshit, so I switched radio for tape, and coming up Split Crow Road, The Surfing Brides were happily informing me thatEverything's Fine (If The World Was Going To End).
A nice, cheerful little number; its selection was a pretty good indication of my state of mind right then, but I had a car full of music and not a single word about love anywhere to be heard.
I wanted to be at home, in bed, curled up around Aimee's soft crescent, not cramped behind the wheel, driving through Newcastle's own grim parody of Hell's Kitchen; backstreets, bridges and graffiti. The entire side of a tower block had been painted with the silhouette of a bird, wings rising in a thirty foot 'v' that scraped the roof of the tower. Each detail of the shadow was immaculate, though God alone knew how the artist had accomplished his art. I had wondered the same thing nearly every day for the thirteen weeks since the bird's manifestation, but like everyone else I was no closer to an answer for all that wondering.
The lights on the roundabout up ahead were changing to red. I thought about running them for as long as it took me to yawn and my foot to ease down on the brake. There were no cars coming either way, so I let the lights run through their cycle again while I groped around on the backseat for the pockets of my jacket and, deeper into the puzzle, my tobacco tin and lighter. The roll-ups were one last throwback to the good old days I wasted as a student, scruffing about Liverpool Poly. There's something soothing about the whole process of rolling your own, drawing on the smoke, letting it leak out in a veil that rafts up in front of your eyes. It's still the cheapest form of therapy I know. That said, I'm not an idiot. I live with my addiction, call the home rolled coffin-nails my pocket shrinks, and tell anyone stupid enough to ask: 'They're helping me to quit.'