The Darkness Beneath

4

Lori hadn't tamed with age, not really. She had perhaps grown less physical, but had become quite prone to vocal confrontations. Much like with her fellow Badgers, this trait had done little to endear her with coworkers or employers. She'd held a slew of jobs since graduating summa cum laude, most well below her skill level.

Currently she was on her third year as a project manager with an entertainment marketing firm, Spotlight 15. They were small time, mainly working in the digital space, though the firm had grabbed an Emmy campaign for a streaming startup last year. That had been their biggest campaign yet. Her employer hadn't let her anywhere near it. Instead she'd been stuck on the marketing campaign for a direct to video sequel for some aged action star nearing his seventies. They were all the same to her, and though she'd felt the campaign was beneath her, she'd played her part.

And when Teddy from accounts tried to steal her copywriter two days before deadline to help with that Emmy campaign, Lori had flipped her shit. There was no way in hell she was going to miss her deadline because Teddy wanted to start prep two months before the client needed copy approval. Hell with that.

Teddy lit red when she refused to let him take her writer. He'd been ready to have her fired. Then this junior, this account manager in training, steps in trying to persuade Lori to calm down. He tries to tell her that they only need the copywriter for a day and that he can get back on her campaign before deadline. Yeah, right. Because accounts always got shit done on time. No, she lit in him, too.

He'd fought right back. Dean had a much stronger backbone than Eddie. She had started dating him three months later. And he never did get that copywriter.

***

Crap, she thought. Dean!

Lori glanced to the clock on her nightstand. Dean was supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes. She had to act now.

For not the first time, Lori cursed herself for having set her phone in the organizer in the foyer. She couldn't call to warn Dean, and her computer was in her home office so she couldn't login and message him either. Being nine floors up, she didn't suspect anyone in the street would pay her any mind, and she couldn't yell to them without drawing that thing's attention. She could try to get someone a message though. All her paper was in her home office, along with her pens and markers, but there had to be something that she could do.

She looked giving her room a once-over and at first saw nothing of use. Then, her gaze fixed on the master bath. She had an idea.

Roughly ten feet stood between her and the bathroom, and its door was catty-corner to the bedroom entrance, and the thing on the other side of that threshold. She'd have to approach as quietly as possible.

Sticking out from under the bed she could see the soft, fluffy heels of her bedroom slippers. She inched over as quietly as she could and slipped them on. As she did, she knelt and glanced under the bed. Beverly had crammed herself all the way back against the wall just beneath the headboard and buttressed by a nightstand. The dog was sound asleep. How long had she been trapped in the apartment with this thing? How exhausted did that dog have to be to have fallen asleep with It right outside the door?

No matter the answer, Lori decided it was for the best. If Beverly stayed asleep, stayed quiet, she should be safe until Lori could get help.

Lori rose and tip-toed in her slippered feet towards the master bath. The cushion of the slippers dulled the noise of her footsteps, and yet she thought she could make a change in the breathing beyond the bedroom door. Was she imagining it, or was it growing faster, almost as if it were anticipating her approach. She could still hear the wet gurgle caught in each breath, but even that had lessened, the exhalations now taking on a more raspy quality. She paused three feet from the door. There was something else besides the breathing, something fast, almost like running water. No, that wasn't right – not running water, but boiling water.

Lori lost traction beneath her slipper, tumbling to the floor with a loud thud. Immediately the bedroom door bulged, straining at its hinges as that thing outside slammed against again.

Wham!

The door bulged again. Lori fixated on the hinges, watching as they shifted. One of three screws on the top hinge seemed to be loosening and the side plate was prying loose from the frame.

Wham!

It hit again, and this time the door splintered. Lori didn't dare move. She waited for the next battering, for that thing to break the door completely. As she waited, her gaze shifted between the loosening plate of the hinge and the ragged crack in the center of the door. Too many points of weakness.

A minute passed and then another, yet it did not attack the door again. Slowly its breathing settled and she could hear its footfalls as it retreated elsewhere into the dark of the apartment. This was her moment.

Careful to regain her balance, Lori rose to her feet and tiptoed the rest of the way to the master bath. Her overhead lights and the exhaust were connected so she didn't flick the switch. If that thing came back, if any sound drew it, she doubted the door would last. As quietly as she could she slid open her makeup drawer, rummaged in, and pulled out a tube of lipstick. Muted rose. It would have to do.

Two drawn out minutes later and she had returned to the bedroom window without alerting that thing, whatever it was. She opened the tube of lipstick and carefully scrawled a message on the window so that would be legible from outside.

Intruder. Call 911. Apt. 905

That done, she examined her handiwork. The letters could have been larger and the color didn't pop as much as she would have liked, but the message was direct and impossible to misinterpret. With the light on in her bedroom the message should be readable. She only had to hope that someone, anyone, would see it and call for help.

With nothing left to be done, she settled to the floor, her back to the wall. On her nightstand the clock continued to while away the minutes. Dean was due in five. She hoped he'd be late, and though she didn't believe in a higher power, she prayed nonetheless. She prayed that someone would call for help before Dean also stumbled in on this nightmare. She prayed and she waited.

***