Apartment 16

Forty-one

Seth collapsed in the hallway, on the other side of the door, panting, sobbing. Then looked up and saw the hooded boy a few feet to his left, agitated, the hooded head whipping from Seth to the traumatized figure of Apryl. She leant against the wall a few feet to his right, one boot turned at an awkward angle and no longer supporting her weight. Further down the hallway, the front door gaped.

‘Seth! Seth!’ the delinquent voice shrieked from out of the trembling hood. ‘Get that fuckin’ tart in there. Bang her in there. Do it now or you’ll be sorry. He’ll take you down there wiv ’em instead. You or her, like. Fuckin’ do what I says!’

Apryl stared at Seth in shock, unable to speak.

‘He wants to meet you,’ he said, his voice sounding pathetic and wheedling to his own ears. ‘In there.’

Apryl shook her head, then turned to run.

‘Seth!’ the boy screeched, and rushed after her. ‘Get her inside. In there I can help you wiv the bitch. Just fuckin’ get her in and we’ll do the rest. Come on!’

As Seth got to his feet and began the pursuit, he realized he was crying.

‘Apryl. Apryl.’ He seized the collar of her coat and yanked backwards. In one long motion she came back at him, her feet airborne. Before clashing hard against the floorboards. Her face screwed up to cry. She was hurt, had banged her tailbone against the floor. Immediately, he wanted to apologize.

‘That’s it. That’s it. You got her,’ the boy shrieked from between the pointy toes of her boots that kicked out and scraped for purchase on the marble tiles.

‘Seth. No,’ she said, in between the moans and sobs she made from the pain that prevented her from struggling, that shut her down.

Walking backwards with long strides, clutching her collar, he slid her along the floor after him. Slapping her hands against the hard smooth surface she tried to slow her inevitable passage towards that door, which rattled from the force of the storm that hammered it from the inside, as if eager with excitement. The collar of her coat passed up the back of her head as she tried to wriggle out of the jacket. He twisted the collar tight in his fists and pulled her shoulders towards each other so the movement of her arms was lessened. He heard his own breath, loud about his ears. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he sobbed at her.

As the hooded boy followed them down the hallway, its short arms swished in the air. ‘In. In. In. In.’ Its voice had begun to squeal.

‘Oh, God no. Please, Seth,’ she wept at him, her pretty face all red and smeared with eyeliner as she turned her head to the side to watch the door she was being hauled closer to. The terrible icy air belched around the frame, giving her a taste of the black infinite void that waited to claim her

Seth quickly reached one hand behind his back and seized the door handle. Apryl’s struggles became frantic when his grip loosened on her collar, and she almost got to her feet. But he kicked one of her legs and she went down and onto her side, whimpering, with her leather jacket all twisted around her face and neck. It had become an effective sling and he could just yank her through there with it.

The hooded boy skipped and panted with eagerness beside their struggles, like a weasel at the sight of a small hole with a rabbit inside. Its legs started a stamping motion and a strange little whinny came out of the dark hood as it readied itself to follow her into the darkness, to finish up.

The door swung itself open wide and a colossal blast of freezing turbulence swept over them, like a wave across the deck of some floundering ship. Just beyond the door a tremendous number of voices gathered, emitted from mouths Seth did not want to see. They screamed from above, and howled from below; they screeched from the sides and hurtled upwards towards the door, as if another chance at life were presenting itself in this unexpected pinpoint of light.

With all his strength, Seth took a step backwards into the darkness and wind. And then took another, and pulled the screaming girl in there with him.