THIS BOOK WILL KILL YOU

13_ascentdescent_

I'm backing away before I know it, and the girl's smile follows me. I feel like I want to reach out and grab her, to pull her up with me so she doesn't have to stay down here by herself, but I'm worried that she'll never let me go so I turn and walk away, walk back toward the stairway door. Only the room's too big, it's growing, and even when I break into a run the door doesn't get any closer, a factory line of tables and chairs appearing from nowhere, passing me, while that back wall stretches further and further and further.

I turn, the bar still right behind me, the girl still smiling. She's put down the cloth and her hand is stretching over the top of the bar, her arm too long, broomstick thin. I trip, fall, use a chair to climb back up again and I run and run and run until I just can't bear it any more and I open my mouth and scream.

The room wobbles and I slam into the door so hard I think I've cracked a bone in my wrist. I push it open, stumble onto the stairs, looking back just once to see the barmaid. There's somebody sitting right in front of her, I'm sure of it. A guy with his face turned away from me, his finger tracing around the rim of a shot glass. He starts to turn his head but I'm not waiting to see, I don't want to be here any more. I don't trust my legs so I take the stairs on all fours, staying on them until I push through the door onto the sidewalk. Even then I don't stand, I roll onto my back, the building leaning over me like it's going to scoop me back inside itself.

I swear, kicking myself away, over the lip of the sidewalk. Something honks, the squeal of brakes, a cab swerving to avoid me. It doesn't stop, its horn blaring until it reaches the end of the street.

"You crazy?" says an old guy, gesturing at me with his walking cane. "Almost got your head popped like a melon. Fool girl."

He doesn't stop to help me up, and even though a younger guy offers me his hand I shake my head, finding my own feet and backing away. The bar watches me go, that glass door dark. I wonder what will happen if I try to open it again, whether this time it will be locked. Whether it was always locked. But nothing on earth will make me try.

Not on my own, anyway.

I dig out my cell, nothing from Flint. I call her again but it goes straight to voicemail.

"Please, Flint," I say.

I need you.

I hang up, standing to one side to let people pass. Nobody reaches for me with bone-thin arms, nobody even looks at me. I'm sliding my cell back into my bag when it rings, and I'm sobbing as I answer Flint's call.

"Thank god," I say. "Thank god."

"Don't think I've forgiven you, asswipe," she says. "Why the fuck didn't you text me? I looked around that party for an hour trying to find you, searched the whole building. Thought someone had roofied you, was getting ready to call the police before your mom rang me back and said you'd been home half the night."

"I know," I say. "I know, I... I can't explain it. I think somebody did spike me." I hate myself for the lie, but right now she needs to hear it. "I don't even remember going home. Woke up in my clothes."

Flint swears. I hear her say something to somebody else, the phone rustling. Then she's back.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, nothing bad happened. Just, like, no memories."

"Assholes," she says. "Not Marcel, but the others. Listen where are you?"

"Downtown," I say. "I'm..."

I stop, because something is suddenly sliding around inside me, a nest of snakes coiling in my gut. My skin's gone tight and cold, my scalp peeling itself off my skin. I'm just down the street from the bar, I can see the door, and something's coming up the stairs. I don't know how I know it but I know it, it's as real to me as if I had x-ray vision. Something is dragging itself up those stairs, something with boiling red eyes. I can feel it like a rabbit feels a hawk, I can feel it in every single part of me, something kicking against my skin and screaming, screaming for me to go before whatever is grinning up those steps reaches the door. But I can't move, I'm just standing there groaning into the phone and I can't move a single muscle.

"Tommi?" Flint says. "Tommi? What's going on? Where are you?"

It's nearly at the top, it's reaching for the door. And I hear Flint gasp.

"Go," says Flint. "Run. Fucking run, Tommi, run!"

I rip myself free, sprinting for the end of the street, and in my mind's eye I see an old hand press against the glass of the door, I see a yellow moon face in the darkness of the stairwell. I run, her grin as big as a building behind me, as bright as the sun. I run, reaching the end of the street, looking over my shoulder even though I know I mustn't.

I see the door open.