Apartment Building E

by Malachi King

  He stooped and lifted Madeline’s mother in a fireman’s carry and said as calmly as he could, “Madeline, grab the back of my shirt and hold on. We’re getting out of here.”

  The woman was heavier than Jack remembered and he grunted under her weight. C’mon, Jack. Just get her to the stairs and it’s all downhill from there. He moved forward and felt a small pull on his shirt. Madeline was following.

  As they passed Marge’s room Jack could feel a breeze and beyond the remains of the far wall he saw slivers of blue sky. There was water spraying from a damaged interior wall and Jack imagined he smelled the distinct odor of natural gas. They made for the stairs.

  Each stair was slow and Jack’s steps were heavy. His shoulder ached from the pressure and the smell of the mold was making his stomach turn. He finally reached the first floor and saw several doors along the hallway open. Willow branches stuck out. Everyone left when that wall collapsed, Jack thought. He wondered if they all were as infected as Marge.

  “How many people…live here, Madeline?” He asked, his cheeks puffing in and out.

  “Ten.” Her voice sounded small, far away. She was gripping Jack’s shirt with white knuckles.

  “We’ll go out the back way,” Jack wheezed. He led her down the hall, past the open doors and turned into the maintenance room. They stepped over the junk, past the wood working tools, past bottles of mysterious liquids, and exited out the door. The last thing Jack saw in Apartment Building E was a jar of green fluid labeled: “FLORA-FAUNA ARW 1839.”

  *

  A few weeks later Jack was sitting in his favorite chair sipping his favorite drink, Galapagos Tea with a pinch of sugar, watching the news. Nathan, his six-year-old boy, was playing with a chemistry set on the floor and his wife was knitting in the rocker. The TV flicked off and Jack set down the remote.

  “So, that’s it then.” Jack said. His wife looked up. “They bulldozed it and cut down the willow. Six residents were admitted to a mental hospital and there are charges pending against the manager.” Even as Jack said this he could hear the hum of the bulldozers around the block at the apartment building complex. He went to the window.

  Jack could see black puffs of exhaust from the demolition work as he peered through the branches of his own young willow tree in his backyard. The harrowing events at Apartment Building E still haunted him; the great poisoned willow, Marge’s terrified, insane look and her cat that scratched him with its razor claws, Madeline’s mother gasping for breath beneath the branches of infected willow. Jack shuddered. Their eyes had bothered him the most. They had all been green, poisoned by the great tree, that mother of all willows.

  “Jack.” He spun around. His wife was bent over their son, holding him by the shoulders, peering into his little six-year-old face. Nathan wore a blank expression; a faraway look Jack immediately recognized. It was the very same insane look of the tenants of Apartment Building E!

  “Jack,” his wife said again. “Look at Nathan’s eyes. They’re not blue anymore. They’re green, Jack!”

  With horror, Jack realized the infection of the great willow may have spread. What if it had spread across the neighborhood, even to his own backyard tree?

  Jack sprang to the door and bolted outside. He ran to the young willow tree standing like a sentinel in his backyard. Its long, whip-like branches sent an immediate chill down his spine. He tore at the trunk, bloodying his fingers as pieces of bark sprinkled down around his feet.

  His fingers began to slip on something under the bark. Jack stopped and raised his palms before his eyes. They were covered in slimy green mold.

  END