The Cracks in the Labyrinth

Chapter 2 (Part 2)

It seemed uncanny.

Adam stared at the plumber, splattered by the eerie light from the flashlight by his feet, convinced he didn't belong to the waking world.

How long had he been like that? Was he having a stroke?

This apartment was Adam's home, his working place, his sanctuary! Why the hell had he let that man in? Because you were thinking with your dick, you moron! He tried to calm himself down. Maybe it was nothing more than a yawn. A freakishly long one!

Still, sheer instinct made Adam take a step back. He could have sworn that he'd seen a worm-like creature slither under the man's cap.

My God.

He needed to find a weapon to defend himself with. A dumbbell? A knife? You're paranoid, Adam told himself. Don't do anything crazy.

What then? Should he wait? Say something?

"Hey!" Adam kept his voice calm but inside he was jittering.

The plumber snapped out of it, stretching his arms above his head. His jaw cracked painfully, but he smirked again, that disgusting expression of sardonic amusement back on his face.

"Sorry," he yawned. "It's one of those days that never ends."

Adam nodded towards the door. "It can end right now."

"No way! I'm a workaholic." The plumber crouched down to open his toolbox. "Did you know that one in five employees is late for work once a week? Don't get it. One is what one does."

Adam backed away once more, wanting as much distance between them as possible. "That's sort of OCD, yes?"

"OCD?"

"If you're a workaholic, that's an obsessive-compulsive disorder."

The plumber swiped his finger over the tiled floor: not a speck of dust. "Takes one to know one, I guess."

"What is that supposed to—?"

The plumber took a cordless drill out of his toolbox and pulled the trigger. A piercing whistle interrupted Adam.

"Do you have an adjustable wrench? Forgot mine."

Adam's eyes dashed from the kitchen knives to the dumbbells aligned against the living room wall and back to the plumber's cap. He found himself having very uneasy thoughts and tried to push them away, but they wouldn't go.

"Don't own any tools."

"Not one?"

"None."

"What kind of man doesn't have any tools?"

"The kind that keeps people like you from going out of business."

There was a pause. The plumber grinned, and the muscles in Adam's back tightened like a guitar string about to snap.

"Behind you."

Adam's throat closed up. He'd locked the door, right? "Listen—"

"You've got a message," the plumber insisted. "On your computer."

Adam glanced over his shoulder and walked to his PC. It was an email from Zhang asking why he had sent him that audio file.

Damn it.

This couldn't be happening. Adam had deleted it for sure! He'd never seen malware like this before, not even during his addiction to Kazaa downloads back in the early '00s. Dealing with that pest would demand complete focus, an impossible thing to ask of him with the plumber lurking around his place.

"Don't want to be the one."

"Sorry?" The plumber scowled.

"The one that's late for work."

"You leavin'?"

Adam pursed his lips, not wanting to tell him anything personal, he responded to the question with a question of his own. "How long until you finish? Five minutes? Ten?"

"If you're going out, I can come back tomorrow. You work from home, yes?"

"Are you a plumber or a journalist?"

The man roared with laughter. "Sorry. I can be a nosy parker. I assumed you don't go out much because you haven't seen the stain in the corridor."

"Stain?"

"A leak. Everything seems fine here, but outside is a mess. It's only a matter of time before you can't live here anymore."

Adam knew the faster he apologized to Zhang, the better. To share a file that could jeopardize his client's computer was inexcusable. However, if his apartment was in danger ... He'd rather not think about it.

The water stain outside was horrible. The hallway wall had become a huge Rorschach test made of dark molds. The stench of old clothes that have been stuffed for too long in a cramped, damp place got worse by the second. Adam began to cough.

"Are you waiting for your neighbor?" The plumber asked from inside the apartment. "Can't blame you. She's finger-licking good."

"The pipes in the bathroom might be the problem," Adam said, keen on having the plumber do his job for the first time. "It was leaking earlier."

"If she lived across from my house, I'd have eaten her up by now."

Adam stepped inside and reached out for his Red Bull but failed to grab it. The energy drink was there, on his desk, just not on the coaster where he left it.

"I hate water stains."

"This will take a while," the plumber said.

"No." Adam looked at the Red Bull warily. "You are done."

"Is that so?"

Adam crossed his arms and waited by the door. He'd pay someone to deal with the leak—anyone but that man.

The plumber shrugged. "Okay. Just a twist here and... Oh, shit!"

A stream of water shot from under the kitchen sink, soaking the floor in seconds. Adam looked down, his eyes wide. If the water reached the carpet, the apartment would reek of wet dog for weeks. Game over.

"What did you do?"

"Where is the cutoff valve?" the plumber asked.

"What?"

"The valve that shuts off the apartment's water supply."

Waves of useless information overwhelmed Adam as he replayed unpleasant conversations with his landlord in his head. Then he remembered where he kept a key to a small, red door in the hall; there, he could access the main pipes on this floor. Near the stairs, he forced the key into the hatch's rusty lock and struggled to twist it until it clicked open.

Among the confusion of pipes, the damned cutoff valve was labeled with his apartment number, 8C. Adam turned it clockwise until it was closed and darted back inside to find his place as dark as a cavern, except for a faint blinking red light. The high-pitched whistle of his UPS made his stomach turn.

"What the hell happened?"

"A short?" the plumber said, unconcerned.

"Out!" Adam's voice was laced with anger.

The man bared his teeth at Adam in an unnerving grin, "This is not my fault."

"Get the fuck out!"

"You bastard. Are you blaming me?"

"Out!" Adam shouted, knowing that he would strangle him to death if that guy didn't leave right away.

To be continued...

Will you vote or will you comment? Choose wisely.