Tenants

by Christopher Motz

  Maybe she would have made a good mother after all.

  "There's one thing you can't take from me," Linda said, growing weaker by the second. "The right to choose my own destiny. You may have used me, but you haven't beaten me. I'll see my father again, see all my friends, and you'll still be here in this hell you've created. Make sure your queen knows that I've cheated her. She can raise her own goddamn child."

  Linda stepped back.

  "I wouldn't do that," Audrey said playfully.

  "You have no more power over me. I take it all back... and there's nothing you can do about it."

  Audrey waved a hand dismissively and smiled as Al turned and walked into the Blackridge.

  The line of monsters advanced.

  When Linda stepped back again, the ground was gone. She fell into open space and wondered what it would feel like when she reached the bottom. She closed her eyes, prepared for the landing... prepared for the end.

  Linda's descent was halted as she was plucked from the air by a giant, gnarled hand.

  She'd finally met the queen.

  On wings the size of a commercial airliner, the queen soared over the crumbling city. Linda couldn't help but think of the dragons that existed in so many fantasies from her youth. Massive, magnificent creatures that pierced the clouds, sun glinting on their colorful armored scales. This wasn't a story for children, no fantasy where good wins and evil is banished from the land. Now there was only evil.

  The queen's hand wrapped around Linda tightly, forming a prison made of flesh and jagged, broken talons. Linda no longer had the energy to scream. As they ascended higher into a burning sky, she drifted away, holding on to those tattered stories of her childhood. She heard the beast's ragged breathing, felt the pulse of its heartbeat through its hard, rough skin. It was warm, pleasant, soothing. Like the infant she'd left behind, Linda was now being cradled like one herself.

  Why struggle when it felt so right?

  She was going to die, anyway.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw the Blackridge spiral away beneath her.

  A black, cancerous tumor on the skin of the world.

  Weakly, she reached up to brush her hair from her face.

  Her hand was covered in thick, green scales; her fingernails were hooked claws.

  When she screamed, she no longer recognized her own voice.

  Even in death, she had become one of them.

  One of the tenants of the Blackridge.

  Chapter 20

  "It's too good to be true," Mary said, trying to hide her excitement but failing miserably.

  "I assure you, what you see is what you get."

  Al Sterling stood on the sidewalk in front of the Blackridge Apartments, playing with his keys and smiling through a mouthful of perfect teeth. His hair was immaculate, his clothes expensive, his scent somewhat alluring even to a girl half his age.

  "Are the tenants nice?" Mary asked. "No offense, but I've lived in wonderful buildings only to have to move because of my neighbors."

  "I think you'll approve. Sometimes you'll have a party or a gathering, but most nights you won't even know anyone lives here. The apartments on the upper floor are especially quiet."

  Mary nodded and allowed Al to lead her through the front doors and into the lobby. He grinned as he listened to Mary suck a breath through her teeth and hold it.

  "You've got to be shitting me!" she said. "Oh, I'm sorry... it's just... jeez. You said five-hundred a month?"

  "I did."

  "Where do I sign?" she said, laughing. It made her giddy. After the years of cruddy dumps, and the later years when she shared an apartment with her ailing sister, this was like paradise.

  After a few quick stops in the laundry room and what Al referred to as the Rose Lounge, he escorted Mary to the elevator and pressed the button for the upper floor. The ride was smooth. The elevator car had the lingering scent of flowers.

  When the car stopped, and the doors opened, Al led Mary into a long hallway with three doors on the right side and a dozen tall windows on the left that looked over Delaney Street.

  "Only three rooms?" Mary asked as she contemplated the enormous size of the apartments. "They must be huge!"

  Al proved her assumption true as he unlocked room 701 and led her inside.

  "Audrey lives at the end of the hall," Al said, "and Linda is right in the middle."

  "A girl's club," Mary said. "I think I can handle that."

  "Linda recently had a baby boy. Cutest thing you'll ever see. Hardly ever cries."

  Of course, you'd say that, Mary thought. No one wants to live next door to a screaming baby.

  "I'm sure you're thinking I'm just telling you what you want to hear," Al said, "but I mean every word. You won't hear a peep from the other rooms. If I'm wrong, I'll give you a full refund on your deposit. How's that sound?"

  "Sounds like you have a new tenant," Mary said as she entered one of the large bedrooms and began planning out her furniture arrangement. After the time she'd spent taking care of her dying sister, and the miserable six weeks since her death and burial, what Mary needed was a place to call her own, one where she wasn't at someone's beck and call. After three years of driving her sister to chemo treatments, doing her laundry and grocery shopping, and cleaning vomit from the carpet, Mary was ready for her own life again. She wouldn't have traded those last years with her sister for anything in the world, but she'd be lying to herself if she didn't feel a profound sense of relief that it was finally over.

  "Will it be just you then?" Al asked.

  "Just me," she said. "My parents died about ten years ago, and it's just been me and my sister ever since. Well, it was me and my sister." She saw the look on Al's face, smiled sadly, and said, "My sister passed recently. Cancer."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Children? Significant other?"

  Mary surprised herself by laughing. "God no! I don't even have pets. Too much work."

  "Some folks are better on their own," he said. "Nothing wrong with that."

  After a few minutes of small talk, Mary agreed to write a check for her deposit. She sat in Al's small office and tapped her feet nervously as he pulled a lease agreement from his desk and handed it to her to look over. She could feel him watching her, and for some reason, she wasn't opposed to his attention. She grabbed a pen from the desk, signed her name, and handed the pen and paper back to Al. He noticed Mary's eyes light up as she realized the pen she'd used was half a month's salary.

  "It's a Montblanc Meisterstuck Solitaire," Al said. "Keep it, it's yours. Consider it a moving-in present from me to you."

  ***

  Linda sat on the couch and listened to Al's voice in the hall.

  She'd know it anywhere. It made her sick.

  She also recognized his sales pitch as he showed someone the apartment next door. It was the same as the one he'd given her.

  She wanted to fling open the door and scream at the top of her lungs... Run! Get as far away as possible and never look back!

  But she didn't.

  She knew the punishment for pissing off Al Sterling.

  Her apartment door had been locked from the outside for almost a month.

  Her baby cooed softly, lying in a crib several feet away.

  Her baby.

  She wouldn't name him, play with him, or hold him. Touching him made her want to scream. She fed him only when Audrey came to check on them. She always used that goddamn door in the pantry... the one Al had said was a leftover from a previous remodel. But it wasn't. It was a secret door, a special door that only Audrey could open. Linda had tried for weeks before finally giving up. Her doors were sealed, her windows unbreakable, the smell of rotten meat unavoidable and not having anything to do with raccoons in the walls.

  Audrey had bitten off the tips of the fingers on Linda's left hand. All of them. She'd made good on her promise to erase Linda piece-by-piece but always offered her a chance to redeem herself.

  Take care of the baby
. Stop trying to escape. You're one of us now.

  As much as Linda fought it, she knew it was true. The nasty, brown scales of her hidden identity would regularly peek through her skin like the ground beneath melting snow. She was becoming a tenant... just like anyone else who stayed in this cursed building.

  And once you were a tenant, you were a tenant for life.

  Linda had learned of her mother's death soon after she'd been brought back to the Blackridge. This Blackridge. She'd hung herself from one of the ceiling rafters in her home, right above the corner where her parents used to put up the Christmas tree... where her father would hold her above his head so she could place the glowing star on top, where they'd sing carols and put out a plate of cookies for Santa every year.

  Is it Christmas yet? She thought. She'd lost track of time. It could have been days or months since she'd last taken a breath outside the walls of room 703.

  The local news channel was her only link to the outside world. This is where she learned of Theresa's and Lenny's disappearances, where she'd heard that Christian was also missing. She knew better. The Blackridge had killed them... Al and Audrey had killed them and made them vanish. She saw them in that other place, the one where lizard-like creatures prowled the streets looking for warm flesh.

  She was slowly becoming one of them.

  Linda had also seen a brief mention of her own disappearance on the evening news, read off a teleprompter by a greasy anchor with an annoying mechanical voice.

  If anyone has any information regarding the disappearance of Linda Gianni...

  No one would ever have information on Linda Gianni. They would never find a car, a credit card trail, or a body.

  She'd been erased, and somehow no one noticed how they were all connected.

  Her only job now was to take care of the thing she'd given birth to.

  When the pantry door squeaked open, Linda didn't turn to see who it was. She already knew.

  "Feeding time," Audrey said. "How's our little boy doing today?"

  "Still alive," Linda replied.

  "And so are you... for now."

  The baby cried out, looking up as Audrey neared his crib. He had his father's emerald eyes.

  Linda stood without being told what to do. Audrey's appearance had become routine.

  "Let's get to it," Audrey said. "Or do I need to remind you what happens if you disobey?"

  "Eventually I'm going to run out of fingers, bitch."

  "Yes you will. And then what will happen, I wonder?"

  Linda unbuttoned her shirt and pulled out one of her aching breasts, waiting for Audrey to place the baby in her arms. Linda wouldn't do it herself. The squirming aberration made her skin crawl.

  While the baby suckled, Audrey sat next to Linda, sighed, and placed a reassuring hand on her knee.

  "You'll get the hang of it," she said. "You'll learn to love him as much as we do. As much as the queen does. You'll realize it's not so bad."

  "Then you'll let me go?" Linda asked.

  "We'll just see, won't we?"

  No, Linda thought. The only way out of here is death. Mine or yours, whichever comes first.

  And she knew the answer to that question without having to ask it.

  Once the baby had eaten and Audrey tucked him comfortably back in his crib, she returned to her spot on the couch where Linda closed her shirt and groaned at the soreness in her nipple.

  "The joys of motherhood," Audrey said. "It gets better over time."

  "How would you know? Where's your baby? How many rats have you breastfed?"

  Audrey ignored her and stood. Their brief encounter was over until the next feeding time.

  Linda waited for the click of the pantry door when Audrey spoke.

  "In case you haven't noticed, we're getting a new neighbor," Audrey said. "She's about your age, pretty little thing. I think you two will be fast friends."

  Linda pulled a blanket up beneath her chin and shivered.

  "Do I have to explain what to do?"

  Linda shook her head slowly and waited for the pantry door to close.

  She knew all too well what she had to do.

  The same thing that had been done to her.

  Linda pulled the blanket over her head and cried.

  She was a tenant, and she had a job to do.

  But could she do it?

  Could she?

  A Few Words About 'Tenants'

  !!!WARNING!!! This section contains spoilers. If you haven't read the book yet, do not continue reading!

  This story came out of the blue.

  After finishing work on my 2018 sequel to 'The Darkening,' and publishing another novel that same year with UK author Andrew Lennon, 'The Pigeon,' I needed some time to regroup and think about which story I wanted to tell next. I had several ideas I wanted to work with and quickly began putting the pieces in front of me to see which puzzle would come together first.

  It was not 'Tenants.' In fact, this tale didn't exist in any form before I began putting the words down, making it the biggest puzzle of the bunch. I had to leave my mythology behind (rest assured, we haven't seen the end of it just yet), move past the serial killer vibe I was in after working with Andrew Lennon (he's not the serial killer... or is he), and find a different path to an original story.

  What I came up with is what you're hopefully holding in your hands right now - a story of loneliness and isolation and finding solace in all the wrong places, for all the wrong reasons. I didn't know exactly where my main character, Linda, was going to wind up (if you don't know Linda, shame on you for reading this part first), but I knew she was somewhat damaged by her circumstances and had few options to get her life back on track.

  The Blackridge was a good first step... or so we thought at the time.

  My fascination with abandoned places is one I've had since I was a child. In the small town where I grew up, there was another abandoned house, hotel, storefront, or industrial building sitting empty on almost every corner. It's the fate of many towns in the coal region, where once the mines closed, so did local business. People moved away never to return, and no one was looking at living in a place where industry had disappeared overnight. No malls? No theaters? No Blockbuster? No thanks!

  Once-busy neighborhoods became shadowy ghosts of their former selves. Houses once full of people remained dark and rotting behind the tall grass of unkempt lawns. Every building had a history that was slowly being forgotten over time... but not by the curious adolescent boys with nothing better to do than look for adventure in the most dangerous places.

  I was one of them. I know what I'm talking about, and I have the scars to prove it.

  The Blackridge was born from the memories of one such building - an old turn-of-the-century hotel that had at some point been converted to apartments before finally closing for good and remaining empty for the better part of twenty-five years. If you abandon it, we will come.

  The building showed hints of its former glory: decorative woodwork buried beneath thick layers of peeling paint, marble floors coated in muck and grime, a bar strangely free of dust as if awaiting customers in the ballroom. But there were other sections of the place that only the bravest, or the dumbest of us would go. I'm also one of them... not so brave, but certainly not the roundest marble in the bag.

  The upper floors were a labyrinth of narrow hallways. Cold, stinking drafts carried the smells of rot and mold through partially open doorways. The floors were an obstacle course of soggy mattresses and bags of garbage that had split open and spilled their contents onto the stained carpet.

  There were things up there... things moving and scratching and chewing.

  At that moment, friendships went out the window. Arms and legs flailed, curses echoed down the hall, feet pounded through puddles of standing water. When we reached the lobby, we laughed, called each other sissies (and other less pleasant names) and patted each other on the back for our amazing escape and strong will.

  When another voic
e joined our own, the party was over.

  We heard someone shouting at us as we hauled ass up the driveway back to civilization.

  "You heard that, right?"

  "Someone was in there."

  "What did it say?"

  I know what it said.

  You'll die in here.

  I didn't say anything to my friends. How could I without being ridiculed?

  When we returned the following weekend, the entire building had been torn down.

  I've told myself over the years that what I heard on the upper floor was nothing more than hungry rats and scavengers feeding on all the garbage that had been left behind. The voice? Let's say it was a squatter... or a concerned citizen trying to scare off the stupid kids. Either way, it left a mark.

  That mark has now become the Blackridge, and it too has secrets hiding in the dark corners just out of eyesight. Many of the rooms are empty, but the ones that aren't should be your main concern.

  If you hear voices calling your name, leave.

  They could just be squatters having a laugh...

  ...or they could be something much worse.

  Do you really want to have to make that distinction?

  Christopher Motz - February 15, 2019

  About The Author

  Christopher Motz was born in 1980 and lives in small-town Pennsylvania with his wife and step-daughter. He's an avid music fan, collector of classic vinyl, and musician. The release of 'Tenants' marks his fifth novel since 2016 as well as having several of his short stories appear in horror anthologies.

  You can reach Christopher on the web at:

  Official Website

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