Written in Darkness

by Mark Samuels

  The horrified looks on the faces of my companions told me that they, too, had heard what I had heard and it was a grim mercy when the sounds were completely silenced once the lift doors were released and tightly shut.

  “I had no idea that there were sub-basements below,” Miss Krug said.

  “None that I know of,” Popov replied, with a tremor in his voice.

  There was nothing else for it but for us to make our way up the stairway to the seventeenth floor on foot and try to communicate with the outside world via the telephones and computers in our office.

  We had only reached the ground floor when I heard the noise, from the stairway, of something knocking at the glass doors to the lobby. Telling the others to stay where they were, I quit the stairs and entered the lobby alone. Some secret sense told me what it might be that was making the sound, and I was not mistaken.

  Behind the glass, half obscured by the swirling snow outside, was the mangled corpse of Olek. It had returned to the building, crawling on its belly, despite its horrific injuries. Most of his head was smashed in on one side, both arms and legs were broken in several places, and when I looked at him I was reminded of a crushed bug that still wriggled its limbs in its death spasms. He was slapping the palms of both hands against the glass over and over again. All of the fingers were missing.

  One other thing: when he first saw me he grinned mirthlessly, as if we were sharing a private joke, and black blood drooled over the broken teeth—exposed where the whole of his lower lip had been torn off.

  I forced my gaze away from the sight, stifling the scream bubbling up from my lungs, and went back to the stairway, slamming the door to the lobby behind me.

  “What was it?” Popov asked.

  “I couldn’t make it out. The snow’s falling too heavily,” I lied.

  He snorted, his hand reached for the door handle and I grabbed his wrist, sharply pulling it away.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  He stared at me blankly, an angry retort forming on the tip of his tongue.

  “For your own good, don’t,” I said.

  *

  The climb up to the seventeenth floor took a long time. Popov’s unfit bulk and Miss Krug’s aged limbs slowed us down, and, although Fodot wanted to dash ahead, I insisted that we all ascended at the same pace and were not separated by more than a few yards at any time.

  When finally we reached our office, the hope that our ordeal was beginning its end, and we would be able to summon help from the authorities, was dashed. The landlines carried the same impenetrable static signal as our mobiles, and all the computers, too, displayed only a snowy electronic fuzz on their screens. Nothing could be done with them. It was as if they had been infected by the blizzard roaring outside.

  Miss Krug kept tapping away at the keyboard of her own machine, and repeatedly re-booting it in the desperate hope it would miraculously return to normal.

  Popov slumped to the floor and ran a none-too-clean handkerchief across the cold sweat sticking to his brow.

  “We have to wait until the snow eases up,” Kartaly said, his eyes blinking repeatedly behind the lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacles, “and then one of us needs to go for help. There’s nothing else for it.”

  Fodot was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette, his eyes as dead as the stub of ash at its tip. I was worried he would crack first, being the youngest and most highly strung of us.

  “This isn’t natural!” Popov cried. “Going for help? Pah! You fool! This isn’t just a snowstorm, that’s not all that’s going on. What the hell happened to Olek, burnt to a crisp and still alive! No answer! And what of Leszno? Descending into floors that don’t exist . . . it’s impossible! I tell you, I believe we’re all going stark raving mad!”

  I was glad, then, that I had prevented him from seeing the even more fantastic sight of what remained of Olek banging away at the glass doors in the lobby. As this thought crossed my mind, the lift pinged in the corridor outside, indicating its arrival on our floor.

  I spun round, expecting to see the grisly remnants of Olek crawling towards us, as if summoned up by my thinking of him. But it was not Olek who appeared in the office doorway, it was Leszno. He was clutching at the frame for support, having staggered from the lift across the width of the corridor.

  The visible flesh was charred and blackened, the remaining clumps of hair on his head still smouldering. Though his clothes were untouched by the heat, his eyes had been boiled all-white. Exactly like Olek as we had first discovered him.

  But this time, no one rushed to his aid. We merely stood there, dumbfounded and horror-stricken.

  Leszno coughed raspingly several times, as if trying to clear his throat and lungs of smoke, and then he tottered across the room until he half-collapsed onto the seat directly in front of his computer terminal. He then slumped forward over the desk and stared fixedly with those white eyes into the chaotic burst of static on the screen. His black, almost skeletal, fingers began to roam all over the computer keyboard like twin spiders.

  Our terror partly conquered by curiosity, we crowded around Leszno in order to see what he was doing.

  Popov poked him in the shoulder.

  “What’s going on, Leszno, eh?” he said. “What happened to you, eh?”

  Momentarily, Leszno turned to him, and drew back his leathery lips in a snarl, baring his teeth. A hollow, mechanical growl sounded in his throat before he turned his full attention once more to the screen.

  Was it just an optical illusion or did the static alter its form according to some rhythm or pattern Leszno was typing out on the keyboard? It seemed almost as if vague images were on the verge of being manifested via the fuzzy interference, and that his tapping of the keys was an attempt to bring them into focus. But always, despite his frantic efforts, the images proved too unstable and kept slipping back into an overpowering chaos.

  “His eyes!” Fodot hissed. “Look at his eyes now!”

  The eyes that had previously been wholly marble white were now completely riddled with static, and it shifted and reformed in sync with the static on the computer screen. Leszno had ceased to blink and it was no mere reflection that we saw there, but an occupying force.

  “I read somewhere once,” said Kartaly, “of a narcoleptic whose eyelids were pulled back as he slept and whose dreams could be seen passing across his pupils, one after the other.”

  Miss Krug crossed herself.

  “Enough! Enough!” Popov shrieked. He took hold of Leszno by the shoulder and hurled him off the chair with great force. As the charred man lay sprawled on the carpet, he grabbed the heavy fire extinguisher from its socket on the nearby wall and held it aloft, ready to smash it down on Leszno’s skull.

  “Kill it! Kill the thing!” Kartaly cried.

  Popov quickly looked at each of us in turn, and only Miss Krug turned away.

  Leszno tried to regain his position on the chair, but Popov kicked him back onto the floor. And then he hammered the base of the heavy fire extinguisher cylinder into the upturned face again and again, with a frenzy born of pure adrenaline and terror. After several blows the skull of his victim was completely crushed. And what we saw thereafter only filled us all with a greater sense of horror, for the gore-splattered mass of brain tissue was suffused with electronic radiance, and the stream of Leszno’s dark red lifeblood that pooled across the floor pulsed with individual bubbles of black and white static.

  Popov staggered backwards, dropping the fire extinguisher as if it were red hot, and leant against a desk for support. A deadly silence enveloped us all, leaving us to our own dark thoughts, and the only sound was that of the rampaging wind of the snowstorm outside as it continued to batter against the Bloy Building.

  Whoever had gone into the lift since the blizzard struck, I reasoned, had been horribly transformed during the journey. Certainly the lift was the key to the whole mystery. Both Leszno and Olek had gone down into depths of the structure that did not previously exist. In or
der to discover the nature of the secret that was now spawning horror all around us, it was necessary to find out what was down there in the hidden subterranean levels. But there was no way of doing so without, presumably, becoming a burnt, insane fiend.

  It was madness, but there was no other way to know.

  I picked up the fire extinguisher that Popov had dropped and wiped off the blood from its base with my handkerchief. I then removed the locking pin, and tested it by pressing down momentarily on the handle. A short white burst of freezing carbon dioxide scattered some papers lying on a nearby desk.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kartaly asked.

  “I’m going down in the lift. What’s down there is the key to all that’s happening,” I said, “and this extinguisher may just prevent me from ending up like Olek and Leszno.”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool,” Popov said. “That won’t protect you! They weren’t burnt by any natural fire. Their clothes were untouched. There’s no scorching that I could see inside the lift cage. You go down in that lift and you’ll end up exactly like them.”

  “I’m going with him,” Fodot blurted out. “Perhaps two of us will have a better shot than just one of finding out exactly what this is all about.”

  “I’d rather take my chances out in the blizzard,” Kartaly said, shaking his head.

  Miss Krug said nothing, and was standing at one of the huge windows, looking out at the storm as if hypnotised.

  “Well, that’s that settled,” I murmured. “Come on, Fodot, let’s go.”

  The two of us went into the corridor and I pushed the call button for the lift. We watched the indicator board charting the ascent from the lower floors, one by one.

  Popov stuck his head outside the office doorway into the corridor.

  “Come back! Don’t chance it!” he cried.

  The lift arrived, and the doors opened with a ping. There was nothing inside.

  Fodot hesitated for a moment, looking back over his shoulder at Popov who was beckoning him to return to the office.

  I stepped inside the lift cage and put the fire extinguisher down on the floor. My hand hesitated over the numbers on the control board.

  “Are you coming, Fodot?” I asked him. “You don’t have to. It’s up to you.”

  “I’m coming,” he replied, stepping in alongside me.

  “Let’s try the lowest button, then.” I pushed the one marked “B” for basement.

  The doors slid shut with another metallic ping and we began our descent.

  *

  We watched the floors passing by through the little glass windows on both sections of the lift doors. The panel above the door frame flashed up each number in turn as the lift cage slid smoothly downwards in the shaft. Then we reached the ground floor and the last stop that was marked, the basement.

  The lift came to a halt, but the doors did not open. I pressed the “B” button one more time, but nothing happened. Perhaps the trip switch that set off the door mechanism on this level was jammed, I thought.

  “Well,” I said to Fodot, shrugging my shoulders, “that’s that. We might as well return to the others.”

  He nodded, and, just as my hand sought the number seventeen on the control panel, all the lights on it went dead.

  With a shudder, and then a jerk, the lift began to move again, continuing its descent.

  “Here we go,” I said. “Who knows what we’re in for.”

  Fodot grinned bravely but there was a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  I peered through one of the little glass windows of the lift cage, but saw no sign of any other floors passing by. It appeared that we were in a sheer vertical shaft with nothing but solid concrete all around.

  “I wonder how deep this thing can go,” I murmured. “Surely there has to be a limit?”

  “I don’t know,” said Fodot. “Perhaps it depends on the length of the supporting cables.”

  It seemed a sensible deduction.

  After several more minutes had elapsed, I tried pushing the buttons on the control panel at random. They were still useless. The panel above the door frame told us nothing.

  “I can’t see how a cable long enough to reach all the way down here could be attached to the lift. It would weigh tons and the coils would take up a gigantic amount of roof space.”

  “Maybe we switched onto some sort of traction rails built into the sides of the shaft,” Fodot mused, “straight after reaching the basement.”

  I recalled the jarring interruption the lift experienced when reaching the basement level and agreed with his theory. It fitted what facts we had.

  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and stuck one in his mouth.

  “You?” he asked.

  I wondered if we’d both suffocate in the confined space, but took one anyway, and he lit it for me. Both of us sat down and puffed away in silence, watching the smoke curling around the confines of the enclosed space, before disappearing through the slim gaps between the doors, drawn out by the upward draught caused by our passage through the shaft.

  Down and down we went, further and further.

  An hour passed. Then maybe two.

  All the while Fodot and I made desultory conversation, talking of our pasts, and he particularly of a sweetheart. But it was a strange, unnatural dialogue, for we were constantly on edge, aware that, at any moment, the lift might halt, the doors open, and an unknown horror fall upon us.

  “Duval,” Fodot said, finally expressing the thought that had, too, been preying on my mind for some time, “you do realise that we must now be over ten miles below ground?”

  I was about to answer, when abruptly the fluorescent overhead lights in the ceiling went out and we were engulfed by utter blackness.

  At the same instant the lift came to a shuddering stop.

  I fumbled for the fire extinguisher I’d placed close at hand, and leant on it as I scrambled to my feet.

  “Quickly, Fodot,” I said in the darkness, “get behind me!”

  I heard the doors open with a ping, and we were instantly engulfed by an incoming wall of electronic static, which poured into the confines of the lift cage like a huge wave. It carried with it an overpowering stench of burning flesh. My whole body tingled with the shock, and I could scarcely see at all, my senses overwhelmed by the radiance. My eyes felt as if they were on fire and would explode in their sockets.

  I collapsed into a corner of the lift cage, crouched foetal, and then heard Fodot’s screams as he was drawn over the threshold by the pull of the withdrawing static as it seeped back into the greater void. There was another ping, the doors slid shut, and the lights flashed back on.

  I was entirely alone, and the lift was slowly ascending the shaft. Despite my frantic efforts the buttons on the control panel still refused to work and I could not stop its progress.

  There was no trace remaining of my fellow passenger except for a half empty, crumpled pack of smokes and some cigarette butts littering the floor.

  *

  Hours later I arrived back at the seventeenth floor. I staggered out of the lift to see Popov leaning casually against the door frame of the office.

  “Changed your mind, eh?” he said with an offensive wink.

  Quite what he meant by this, I had no idea, except that he must have been making a joke in bad taste at my expense.

  He was gazing over my shoulder, as if waiting for poor Fodot to emerge in my wake. Finally he brushed past me and saw into the empty lift cage for himself before the doors slid shut.

  “Where is he, eh? Where’s young Fodot?” Popov asked, looking genuinely surprised. By now, the others had joined him in the corridor, looking as puzzled as him.

  “Gone. Absorbed. Hours and hours ago. My God.” I managed to croak out the words.

  “Hours? What are you talking about? You’ve been in the lift for only a couple of minutes!” Popov replied, looking to Miss Krug and Kartaly for confirmation. They both nodded solemnly, as they
helped me into the office and sat me down in a chair.

  “He’s right, Duval,” Kartaly said, “you left us to go to the lower floors less than five minutes ago.”

  I glanced at my watch. There was a difference of over four hours between it and the time shown by the clock that hung on the wall. Unable to fathom the anomaly, I gratefully accepted the cup of hot coffee laced with sugar that Miss Krug brought me. I sipped at it, and noticed that my hands were trembling. My gaze roved about the room and I saw that the body of Leszno had been covered with his own coat, blotting out the sight of his crushed head and the crazy bloodstain. I shivered involuntarily.

  “Well,” Popov said, standing over me, his brow furrowed, “what happened to the kid? Absorbed, you said. What does that mean?”

  “Can’t you see he’s not well?” Miss Krug chimed in. “Won’t you leave him alone until he’s got his strength back?”

  “I recall reading once about a famous case in Versailles,” Kartaly began to explain, apparently thinking out loud to himself, “of two ladies who found themselves transported into an earlier century . . . ”

  “Will you please shut up talking nonsense!” Popov screamed at him.

  Kartaly’s fists clenched and he was on the verge of assailing Popov when we all heard the ping of the lift doors opening in the corridor outside.

  Then Fodot staggered into the office.

  I dropped the coffee cup.

  He was just like Olek and Leszno.

  White, blank eyes and blackened, burnt flesh.

  Without seeming to notice our presence, Fodot went to the nearest computer terminal, switched it on, and began his attempts to manipulate the static on the screen by tapping at the keyboard.

  His eyes rapidly began to take on the appearance of the electrical interference.

  “For God’s sake,” Kartaly blurted out, breaking the spell the sight exerted over us all, “let’s get out of here!”

  Now no one protested, and even I, despite my weakened condition, acquiesced. I was sick to my soul of it all, and there seemed no alternative to Kartaly’s suggestion. To remain in the building would entail certain madness or death. We filed out of the office, making for the stairs, in order to take our chances on foot in the still-raging blizzard outside. I wondered if Olek was still banging his hand against the glass of the lobby door.