The lift came to an almost imperceptible halt and the doors slid open. She looked down at her daughter, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before stepping into the elegantly decorated corridor. Excitedly but quietly they checked the number on each door they passed, fearful of disturbing the eerie silence that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the building. Apartment 75! This was it! She took out the key, breathed deeply, gave her daughter's hand another squeeze and together they crossed the threshold to a new life. The sound of a crying child filtered through from a distant apartment, breaking the silence. At least it was a sign of life.
“It’s OK darling I’m coming”, Angela leapt out of bed wondering what could be troubling Alice. As she left her bedroom, momentarily gaining her bearings in the expansive hallway, she assumed it must be the new surroundings. Waking up in a strange bedroom, no matter how luxurious, was usually unsettling for a five year old.
“There there, Mummy’s here...” Angela stopped dead as she swung open her daughter’s bedroom door to find her fast asleep, her heavy, rhythmic breathing falling marginally on the acceptable side of a snore. Shaking her head to dislodge the last remnants of sleep from her brain Angela realised the crying was coming from elsewhere. Now she was wide awake it was obvious. It was the apartment directly above. The sounds were far too muffled to have been Alice. She quietly closed the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen via the huge living room, the soles of her feet appreciating the feel of the soft, deep carpet. As she entered the kitchen and filled the kettle a tingle of excitement shot through her. All this was hers now! Hers and Alice’s! And Paul’s of course!
The boiling kettle drowned out the crying and Angela shot a pitiful glance upwards. She’d arrived to the plaintive cries; lay in her bed trying to sleep with them seeping into her bedroom and now she’d woken to them. In fact, if her pre-caffeine brain functions served her correctly, much of the previous evening’s unpacking had been conducted with the pitiful noise providing a muffled audio backdrop. The parents must have been frazzled! Spooning instant coffee into a mug she remembered how hard it had been with Alice, especially considering her career choice. Angela laughed to herself. Choice? If only! As she poured boiling water onto the coffee granules she offered a silent thank you that her past was exactly that! And thanks to Paul, she and Alice now had a very bright future. They had many things to thank Paul for, although after taking a sip, his choice of coffee certainly wasn’t one of them. A shopping trip was required, with decent coffee being first on the list.
Angela ended the call. At times like this she longed for an old-fashioned receiver to slam down for dramatic effect. Her post-shopping feel-good bubble had been well and truly pricked. The news that Paul had urgent business to attend to, and would be a few days late, was not what she wanted to hear.
“Mummy?” Alice’s soft voice interrupted Angela’s silent brooding. “Why doesn’t her mummy give her a cuddle?”
“Sorry darling?” Angela turned towards Alice unable to hide the fact that she hadn’t heard a word her daughter had said.
“The little girl upstairs! Why doesn’t her mummy stop her crying?”
Angela glanced upwards, suddenly becoming aware of the noise again. Her conversation with Paul and her subsequent disappointment at his delayed arrival had served to block out all background disturbances. She smiled at Alice, desperately searching for an answer to what, under the circumstances, was a pretty fair question. The damn child hadn’t stopped crying since they’d walked through the door some 24 hours earlier!
“Oh I don’t know baby. Maybe she’s ill!” It was all she could think of and Alice’s resigned shrug suggested that it would suffice for now.
With Alice safely tucked up in bed Angela reclined on the huge corner sofa with a chilled glass of Liebfraumilch. She could afford so much better now, or rather Paul could, but it was a taste she had grown up with and didn’t see any point in changing. It was cheap and it did the job. Old habits die hard! Well most of them do! Some of them, on the other hand, just die. Angela pushed back as the memories attempted to force their way back into her consciousness. She didn’t need this. Now she had Paul she was relying on her settled existence rendering her violent, nomadic history obsolete. She shuddered as she thought of how Paul could have easily ended up like the rest, would have ended up like the rest, if it hadn’t been for his eyes. She smiled as she remembered their first meeting. He was a lonely, wealthy, socially inept individual and Angela had mentally marked him as her next target within two minutes of meeting him. Then he looked deep into her eyes. His pitch black eyes betrayed no emotion but somewhere deep within the spiralling darkness something stirred. It wasn’t visible but Angela felt it, drawing her in and enveloping her in an invisible, warm, protective shield and for the first time in years, possibly in her entire life, she felt secure. So secure she decided there and then that Paul wasn’t going to die like the others. It was at that exact moment she saw it. Like a lightning bolt emerging from a dark, storm laden sky, a brilliant white flash seemed to leap from the darkest recesses of Paul’s eyes. For an instant the warm, secure sensation was replaced by the feeling she was in the presence of pure, unadulterated evil but this passed as quickly as it had arrived. So fast that she couldn’t even be sure it had ever happened as she once more basked in the glow of Paul’s comforting, soothing presence. Angela cast an irritated glance upwards as the increased volume of the sobbing child from upstairs disturbed her reminiscences. Noticing the empty wine glass she re-filled it, drained it in one gulp then filled it again. She needed to be blind drunk if she was going to sleep through the non-stop wailing of the child from hell.
The freshly brewed coffee and paracetamol were doing little to relieve Angela’s impression that her brain was trying to pound its way out of her skull. Despite the copious amounts of alcohol she had woken at 3 am. courtesy of the wailing banshee upstairs. When the rhythmic sobbing began to resonate with the thudding in her head she gave up all hope of returning to sleep and moved into the living room. Her phone call to Paul had done nothing to brighten her mood either. Despite her assurances that it was the same child disturbing her sleep, and her every waking moment, rather patronisingly Angela thought, Paul had tried to fob her off with some excuse about the air-conditioning system carrying sounds from all over the building. He couldn’t even offer any reassurances regarding the apparent desolation of the apartment building. Private people paying a premium for a private, peaceful environment was his best offer.
Despite Paul’s patience at being woken by the early morning call Angela’s anger towards him rose with the crescendo in her head. He was lying! She could tell. And despite the fact that she had lied to Paul since the moment they had met she was flooded with self-righteous indignation. How dare he lie to her! Didn’t he realise how lucky he was to be alive? How close he had come to joining the rest of the disgusting perverts who paid to have their sick and twisted desires satisfied while her daughter lay in the next room? How she had decided to spare him? He even got to sleep with her, for free, whenever he wanted. Average looking Mr. Ordinary Paul had one of the best in the business at his beck and call and now he had the audacity to lie to her. Dumping her and her daughter in this eerie, silent mausoleum with a Duracell powered crying machine living upstairs while he wined and dined his clients in fancy restaurants. Christ, will that child ever give up howling?
Enough was enough! Something had to give. Her headache certainly wasn’t going anywhere so it had to be the crying. She was going to put a stop to it now! As she passed her daughter’s bedroom she turned the key in the lock. She would only be a few minutes but there was no point in taking chances. Not wanting to risk getting stuck in the lift she headed for the door to the stairwell.
Angela pushed open the door and stepped into the eighth floor corridor. Surprise, surprise! It was identical to the seventh floor. If her assumption was correct she was looking for apartment 85. As she walked down the corridor, feet silent on the plush carpet, her anger grew. She had been aware of some dreadful cases of neglect in her past but that was women on the edge, some little more than children themselves who were struggling to hold their own lives together without the added complications of supporting a child. This was different. Very different! The apartments must have sold for at least a million each so there could be no excuse other than plain old-fashioned evil.
She stopped outside apartment 85 and pressed her ear against the door. This was definitely the one. Looking up and down the corridor she shook her head. What the hell was wrong with people these days? Surely someone on this floor would have felt compelled to do something before now. Although if Paul’s level of concern was typical of the residents of the building it was no surprise she had to take matters into her own hands. She didn’t have time to debate the decline of community spirit in modern society, she wanted to sort this and get back to her own daughter. As she raised her hand to press the ornate door-bell Angela froze. The door was slightly ajar! Convinced the door had been shut tight when she’d pressed her ear against it she took a step back unsure of her next move. Knock on another door? Get help from a neighbour? What neighbours? Angela was beginning to wonder if she and Alice were alone in the building. Just her and her daughter! And a lonely, frightened child! Just what had Paul been thinking bringing them here?
The crying was louder, the sound finding its way through the narrow gap between door and frame. It seemed more fraught, more desperate, causing Angela’s anger to dissipate, maternal concern taking over. She made her decision. With an anxious glance along the corridor she pushed open the door and stepped inside. Apartment 85 was a clone of apartment 75.
“Hello”, no answer except the increasingly urgent crying. She took a few steps towards the source.
“Is anyone there?” the even tone of her voice belied the trepidation she felt. A few more tentative steps!
“Look, I just want to help”, the cries became almost animal in their desperation, emanating from the room directly to her right. The room Alice occupied on the floor below!
Angela wanted to run, to turn around, run downstairs, and pick up her daughter and leave. She couldn’t! Behind that door a desperate child needed her and nobody else seemed to give a damn. Placing her hand on the door-handle she inhaled deeply and pushed. Locked! They’d even locked their distressed child in the bedroom. Her anger rose again. At least the key was still in the lock. She quickly turned the key and burst into the room. The dense blackness within struck her like a wave crashing onto the shore causing her to catch her breath. A feeling of resignation and immense sorrow rode the wave’s crest and invaded her through every pore. Every murky aspect of her life, purposely buried deep beyond her mind’s normal ability to recall, was played out instantly and simultaneously inside her head and suddenly she understood everything. Why Paul had brought her here! What must happen next! The feral wailing began to subside and as it did so her limbs became heavier and heavier. Her sorrow deepened and deepened. Until Angela felt that her heart would break. And it did!
Alice stirred; the sudden, oppressive silence as disturbing as any nocturnal sound. She lifted her head, angling it slightly in an attempt to make out the muffled sobs. Nothing! For the first time in days the only sound she could hear was the slow, steady thump of her heart. The solid blackness of the bedroom weighed heavily on her chest and with each breath it seemed to permeate deep within her, slowly filling her with an unexplained sense of dread. Her infant brain struggled to comprehend the all-pervading feeling of total and utter despair. All she knew was that she desperately wanted her mummy. Alice began to cry.
The lift came to an almost imperceptible halt and the doors slid open. She looked down at her daughter, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before stepping into the elegantly decorated corridor. Excitedly but quietly they checked the number on each door they passed, fearful of disturbing the eerie silence that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the building. Apartment 65! This was it! She took out the key, breathed deeply, gave her daughter's hand another squeeze and together they crossed the threshold to a new life. The sound of a crying child filtered through from a distant apartment, breaking the silence. At least it was a sign of life.
THE END