Copyright © 2011Elena Hearty
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
Lenore stood at the entrance to apartment B14 as her host fumbled with the keys. All other doors along the basement hall appeared to have been boarded up or hastily filled with cement. A single lighting fixture flickered above, causing Lenore‘s shadow to dance against the wall. It looked like it was running.
“Don't get many trick-or-treaters, huh?” she asked, eying three deadbolts on the door.
Richard smiled as he wrestled another key from countless others on the ring. “Never had a trick-or-treater. B14 is a sort of misnomer, by the way. This place was built in 1907 and originally had 14 apartments to a floor. When my great-grandfather bought the building in 1920, he moved into this unit and started expanding as vacancies emerged. Now just about half the floor is this apartment, and the rest is filled with utilities. You'll see - my place is about 4500 square feet, when it's all said and done.”
“So it's just you down here?” Lenore would later remember this moment with longing, as it was her last possible opportunity to escape.
“Yep. Just me.” Richard turned the final deadbolt and opened the door. “Ladies first.”
Eager to lay her eyes on the urban mansion, Lenore stepped into a sprawling foyer and was not disappointed. She marveled at marble floors and ornate ceilings as the door closed behind her, thinking that for someone who did not appear to be out of his late twenties, Richard had quite sophisticated taste. The interior design was distinctly art-deco, punctuated by eccentric touches, such as the bright orange coat rack on which she hung her jacket.
“I'm impressed. This isn't what I was expecting. Not after the outside...” She stopped herself, not sure if she was being rude.
Richard seemed too distracted to care. He cocked his head to the side as if straining to hear something and then brushed past Lenore on his way down the hall. Not knowing how else to respond, she followed his lead, and the sound of a woman crying emerged as she walked. Hadn’t Richard claimed to live alone? Her pulse quickened.
Lenore turned the corner into a large parlor and jerked to a stop. Something was wrong. Richard leaned against a pool table, joking around with another man who appeared to be covered in blood. A disheveled girl cried loudly over a sopping mound of flesh in the center of the room; it still wore the clothes of a man.
Ripped apart and badly mutilated, the corpse resembled something a tabby might leave at its master's doorstep. Taking a step back, Lenore could make out a trail of blood all over the floor and assumed that the victim must have struggled before expiring next to the coffee table. The girl wailing beside him would periodically lift the head in a hopeless attempt at revival.
The lamentation of the mourner on the floor struck Richard and his blood covered friend as high comedy, every sob evoking a new string of ridicule. Richard facetiously suggested she try mouth to mouth resuscitation, which threw his companion into a peal of laughter. Neither man appeared to acknowledge Lenore's slim figure in the entryway; they were entirely too delighted with the harassment of the other woman to pay her any notice.
Lenore took a few slow steps back into the hallway and sat on the ground. She needed to think. Whatever had happened to the man on the floor had not been an accident, and the reaction of the men in the parlor suggested indifference at best. No one was making any motion to call the police. She needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
With stealthy deliberation, Lenore made her way back to the front door and tried the handle. It rotated, but the door did not open. The deadbolts had been turned with a key from the inside; Richard must have sealed her in the moment she walked through the door.
A hand touched her shoulder. She jumped.
“You weren‘t thinking about ditching us, were you? You just got here.” Richard stood grinning behind her.
Lenore‘s mouth trembled. “Listen, I - I don't know what‘s going on, but it looks like you’ve got a lot to take care of right now. I can take a look at your record collection another time, ok? I'll - I'll email you tomorrow - is that cool?” Richard kept smiling, but made no motion for the keys. “Please...I really don't know what's going on. I don't belong here.”
He grabbed her by the hand. “But Lenore, I think you do belong here. Let's head into my living room and we'll figure this whole messy situation out. What do you say?”
She tried to wrestle free of his grasp, but found this to be impossible. Eyes dashing wildly between Richard the door, Lenore realized that even if she were to break free, there was nowhere to go. Silently, she walked with him back to the living room, where Richard released her hand and turned his attention to the woman on the carpet.
“Hey Angela, why don't you come with me?”
Angela’s face distorted into a terrified grimace. “NO! I want to stay with Lance.”
“Lance isn't lookin' so hot, kiddo. C'mon and don't make a show of this. Let's go.”
Angela sprang to her feet and ran to the other man in the room. “Please,” she said, clinging to him. “PLEASE. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t let him take me. Call Charles. WHERE’S CHARLES?” She screamed as Richard started moving toward her. “You can’t let him take me. Don’t do this. PLEASE.”
Richard’s friend held Angela in his arms for a long moment and kissed her gently on the forehead. “So long, kiddo,” he whispered. Then he handed her to Richard, who carried the pleading woman out of the room and into the hallway. A door shut in the distance, and Lenore could hear muffled screaming on the other side.
The blood covered man grinned at Lenore. “Rich asked me to entertain you while he talks to Angela.
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