The 8th Floor – Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Disbelief clouded my judgement for a moment. I wanted to pinch myself, but I was fairly certain that I was awake, there would be no need for that. My girlfriend of two years lay completely disfigured with her limbs twisted awkwardly and blood oozing out and dripping down every part of her mangled body. There, on the top of my car, which by the way would never recover from the impact, lay the remains of Christy’s almost naked body.

I was suddenly a kaleidoscope of intense emotions as confusion, sadness, fear and anger raced through every ounce of muscle in my body in a flash.

Christy was dead! On my car. What an irony.

I looked skyward and just at that moment a head peeped from the broken window in Christy’s room.

I raced into The Maranatha without giving it a second thought. There was no escaping the agonizing race up the staircase propelled by adrenalin so intense that I skipped steps in a bid to get to the eighth floor, the same one I could not imagine I would be climbing that evening.

Someone must have pushed Christy from her room. It must be the guy who peeped from the window. Who could this person be? My mind raced from one possibility to the other. Was Christy cheating and had a boyfriend over or was it a robbery gone wrong?

I knew that the answer or at least the obvious clues to the answer must be in that room.

The staircase was unusually busy that evening. Every floor had children milling around playfully or adults pacing down the stairs. There was no time for polite excuses or warnings as I managed to shove past a middle-aged couple along with five of their children as they walked casually through the dingy floors. I left the kids sprawled on the steps while their bearded father chased after me only for a few steps. I didn’t look back. I was a man on a mission.

I ran into two teenagers who were neck deep in fornication as I raced past the sixth floor. They were having a go using the rails as a prop. I couldn’t help kicking the boy as I raced past the landing, climbing to the seventh floor. His protest drowned in the rapids of my beating heart.

No, he didn’t give a chase. How could he when the blood in his brain was momentarily pooled in his engorged member.

I didn’t break a sweat until I hit Christy’s floor, her door was ajar. Something was off.

I looked around before barging into the apartment. When I got into her room, everything seemed as it should be. Her six-foot bed was well made with its white sheet screaming for my tired body. I stood transfixed for a moment taking in the remnants of that familiar scent that reminded me of her presence.

I looked around the apartment; the two rooms, the toilets, the kitchen and then finally the living area, the whole place was empty with an eerie quiet that suggested that the person had left the apartment eons before I arrived.

I wondered if in my haste to get to Christy’s floor, I had raced past the killer. Yes, the killer! As far as I am concerned, that person is the killer.

The bastard!

Sadly, I was very certain that I could not recognize this person even if they called him out on a line.

I approached the windowsill and peered out as the killer had done only minutes earlier. The view from the eighth floor was damning and heart wrenching. I lost two girlfriends in one day!

My Toyota being the second!

The crowd surged around her remains with flashing phone cameras punctuating the darkness and the wailing and inconsolable screaming from elderly women, perhaps even mothers complementing the noise. It was so much of a sad view that the tears that I held back poured freely down my cheeks as muscle spasm reverberated through my body.

I didn’t cry. I wailed! I wanted to outdo the crying mothers down at the parking lot.

“My Christy is gone!”

I turned around to face the bedroom when I started to feel like fainting, that was when I noticed the bedside table. It had been forced open. I quickly yanked open the drawer to rummaged through its content.

“What could be of interest here?” I wondered as my brows creased.

I remember vividly that she kept her reading glasses, some jewelry, a few motivational books and some of the medications she popped just before sleeping every night in that drawer.

“Why is the drawer opened?” I asked no one in particular.

I sniffed the drawer before I felt for its contents, not sure what to find. I wasn’t even particularly good with recognizing scent anyway. But I had to do something.

I found nothing of interest.

Then I took a second cursory look around the room. The rug, the shoe racks, the television console, the bookshelves even the standing lamp.

Nothing of interest.

Then I heard the sound. It sounded like someone cluttering to dustpans and brooms. I looked around for what to grab. I needed a weapon for self-defense.

“God help me, I didn’t plan for any of this. I am going to kill someone so forgive me in advance.”

I found a glass flower vase by the television console. I picked it up quickly emptying its content on the rug. I held the glass vase with both hands ready to swing at the slightest noise.

The noise came from the kitchen. I yanked open the kitchen door to the sight of a huge rat scrambling for privacy.

“Damn!”

Just then three men arrived the front door asking the same questions I sought answers for. All three men could not stand straight, heaving heavily from the climb.

writing in progress