Moving Out

“It’s this cheap because of the vibrations.”

“What do you mean?” Daisy said.

“People believe that the building vibrates in such a way that it drives some people crazy,” the person showing her around said. “Not everyone. Just some. Like how you can hear some frequencies and others don’t”

Daisy gazed around the room. It didn’t look any different than the other places she had looked at.

“It’s bullshit anyway. Truth is that this place used to be where they dumped people out of the loony bin when they got overcrowded. But that was sixty years ago.”

Daisy already had the space planned out as the guide continued. The space by the window where she could put some plants. The corner to place her pile of books.

She pulled out her phone. She had signal. Full bars. Unheard of elsewhere in the city.

“So who are you moving in with? Friends? Partner?”

“Oh, no,” Daisy looked up. “I’m moving out. Solo.”

“And you’re fine with being alone here?”
“Like you said, it’s cheap,” Daisy smiled. “And that’s all I need to hear with my salary.”

Daisy gathered the things she wanted in one trip. The faster out of that place, the better. She was graced with a window of time where she would be undisturbed. The past months had been enough stress for her.

She chewed the edge of her thumbnail as her college friends moved her TV into position.

“You took the TV??” Danny laughed.

Daisy lowered her hand. “Hey, I think I’m allowed to steal something of theirs!”

“You couldn’t have stolen a smaller TV??” Glen said, dragging his edge of the TV into position.

“Then I wouldn’t have needed my guys!” Daisy passed over a can to each of them.

Danny didn’t spare a beat. The tab cracked and fizzed over with well-deserved beverage. Glenn followed suit.

“Hey,” Danny wiped at some spilled drink. “When’s the housewarming?”

“Your invite is in the mail,” Daisy said, before she cracked into her can.

The first night went smoothly. Daisy had gotten most of her stuff either unpacked or in position. The problem with the building was that it was great at retaining heat, which is not so fine in the hottest summer on record. She sweated through her sheets, even with the heavy bedroom window cracked open as far as possible to let in the city below, and the cheap fan she pilfered nearby rattling and rotating, circulating air the best it could.

Daisy’s body couldn’t stay still for long. She either shifted around on the new mattress to sink comfortably, or she rolled over to reset entirely. All the while hearing the rumbles of the world around her before eventually she fell into the blackness of sleep.

Daisy fell into living alone easy, as most people of her disposition would. People were exhausting and looked out for themselves. Daisy could live with being exhausted just looking out for herself a lot of the time. She reclined on her second-hand sofa, heavy hardback in her hand, the harsh summer light cutting past her through the blinds. Her free time was her own. No yelling. No commitments. No spectrum of her emotions to deal with. Just quiet.

Until the door bashed. The heavy wood reverberated in its frame. It caused Daisy to bolt up. Though the building was old, an intercom system had been installed connecting her place with the street below. A unannounced knock meant it was a neighbour. She hadn’t met any yet.

Daisy slipped the receipt of her book between pages and rest the tome on her coffee table.

“One sec!”

Daisy threw on her dressing gown and walked over to the door. She looked through the peephole. No-one. Maybe it’s a kid, she thought.

She slid back the bolt and grasped the handle tight. With a wrench the door swung open. There was certainly never going to be any break-ins with a door like that.

Daisy stepped out into the hallway and looked both ways. Nothing. She looked to the welcome mat below her feet for any signs of a note or a delivery she had forgotten. Nothing. Daisy shrugged and returned inside. She used her full weight to push the door back to a close.

The place had an air-conditioning system. Daisy thought it was rude that she hadn’t been told it didn’t work properly until after she moved in. She tried contacting Maintenance, but no-one would touch it.

“It could have been a botch job” Daisy’s dad said. “That building’s old. Maybe that’s the only thing keeping the ceiling up.”

Daisy’s dad didn’t offer to take a look at it himself. By all accounts, he wasn’t the handyman type anyway.

Daisy lamented the lack of air conditioning as the summer continued. Some nights she would attempt to turn it on anyway, in the futile belief that maybe it would have sorted itself out. All it did was groan and wobble. She turned it back off as she tried to go to sleep. As it died out, all Daisy could focus on was the low vibration of its powering down.

“You get what you pay for,” Daisy said. She poured herself a glass of wine.

“Surely they’re paying you then for a place like this,” Sara said.

“Hey come on now, it’s got charm to it!” Charlotte said with a grimace hidden behind her glass.

“It’s got potential,” Daisy sank into her seat. Her thumb rubbed the rim of her glass. “I just had to get out of there, you know? I didn’t think about it. Plus at this price I don’t have to constantly dip into my savings or ask dad for money.”

“We can’t all be heiresses,” Jas said to Sara.

“I can’t help that my father is the Sofa King,” Sara protested. “How are you finding your sofa anyway, Dais?”

“Could use some softer cushions” Daisy said. She took a couple hops up the sofa to get more comfortable. The others laughed. Charlotte’s phone on the coffee table lit up. She reached for it.

“Oh, our ride is outside, drink up!” Charlotte threw back her drink faster than any surrounding efforts. She slapped her hand onto Daisy’s knee. “We’ve gotta find you another man.”

Sara’s face scrunched up as she tried to finish her drink along with the others. She discarded it next to one of Daisy’s dying plants and clapped. “Oh give her time, Sara, she doesn’t have to pull tonight.”

“Tell that to the dress you leant her,” Jas said.

Daisy looked down at the green dress she chose out of the four options Sara offered. That was the power of a good dress and a circle of friends who could help you with your hair and makeup. Confidence. Alcohol also helps.

Not that Daisy thought much of her chances as she followed the other ladies out. She caught one last glance of her falling face as the lights went out and the shadows filled in around her.

Alcohol affects your tastebuds. No more true than how a new body tasted when laced with alcohol and one too many sprays of fragrance. Daisy knew this sample wasn’t for her in the long term, but she felt like she needed more than her quiet existence in that moment.

Daisy’s place echoed with giggles and jarring volume spikes in the dead of night. She trailed her new admirer to her bedroom walking asymmetrically - one high-heel discarded by the imposing front door slammed shut by this stranger she had brought into her space.

The dress had done its job but part of Daisy lamented how soon until it was discarded on return home. Her ears continued to adjust after a night standing beside speakers and yelling “What?”, her throat roughened by screams and stolen cigarettes in smoking areas. Her senses fogged as she found herself entangled with a body that didn’t know hers. One that defaulted to steps well-practised but without personalisation.

Daisy sprawled over this intruder to her solo existence. Hair matted. Sheets in disarray. Sweat, saliva, and cruder substances strewn across the two of them. She found what comfort she could. Her eyes closed and pretended this rise and fall on this strangers chest equated to the peace she once held before.

The window remained closed. The fan stood dormant. All there was was the pathetic rattle of the dysfunctional air conditioning.

Daisy woke to scratching. She squeezed herself towards her bedfellow, but they weren’t to be found. She frowned. The day still hadn’t broken and she was alone. Again. Daisy reached for her sheets and covered up her shame. The scratching continued. She looked around. No-one was in the room with her. She focused and moved her head around, seeking the source of the sound.

More scratching. Indistinct noises.

Daisy sat up and flicked her lampshade on. She looked over at her makeup table. Sara’s green dress was folded neatly over the chair. Daisy’s bag hung off the side of it. Her one-night stand must have moved her shoe back to the front door with its fellow.

Scratching.

Daisy’s head flicked in the direction of it. It was coming from behind the wall. Daisy lived on the top floor, so she reasoned it must have been a pigeon or some other bird. Rats don’t live this high. At least that’s what she reasoned. It must have somehow gotten into the air-conditioning. Daisy frowned. She hoped that the bird would be able to get out of there on its own. If it died in there, that’s a whole extra problem. At least with a broken air-conditioning system the smell wouldn’t be blown around the place, but it still didn’t change the fact something died up there.

Maintenance didn’t want anything to do with it. Daisy’s father had been correct, the air-conditioning was done on the cheap many years ago and it messed with the structure of the building somehow. They start messing around with it, maybe they bring down a wall or ceiling, and that’s a costly mistake after costly mistake. Daisy could only hope that the bird escapes on its own accord.

The scratching stopped two days later. Daisy was relieved as it had become ingrained in her mind. She didn’t even notice until she left and returned to the room. When she had first moved in, the smoke alarm needed to have its battery changed. Until Maintenance finally arrived with a ladder and fresh batteries, the beep had made its home in Daisy’s subconscious. It got to a point where she only heard it when she stood directly below the detector.

Daisy had learnt to fall asleep to the noises of the city below, the rattling fan, the wheezing ineffective air-con, the scratching in the walls. The vibrations of the building.

The front door banged. It sounded like a closed fist bearing upon it. Authoritative. Daisy was in the kitchen, mid-repotting one of her plants. She wiped her hands on her jeans and strode over to the door. She slung back the bolt and wrenched it open to no-one.

“Huh.”

Daisy stepped back out into the hallway. She looked left. She looked right. Someone opened a door down the way. The resulting change in air pressure pulled her front door closed.

“Goddamnit.”

She twisted at the handle. The door thumped in front of her. She froze for a moment. Daisy looked to her right. A neighbour had just slammed their door shut and locked it behind them.

She looked back at the front door and pushed against it, popping it open a minimal amount. Daisy leant into it and dug into the ground. A further push, and she was back inside.

The hallway filled with the bang of it closing behind her once more.

Rob was the one person Daisy did not want to see that day, let alone any day. They still had to work out some things this far down the line, to Daisy’s chagrin.

“Obviously I’m not going to charge you for the TV”

Daisy’s arms almost never uncrossed through the entirety of the conversation.

“But you still need to pay me back for -“

“For what, Rob?” Daisy said as blunt as she could.

“The bills for the last two months? The holiday, you never paid me back for mum’s present...”

“I bought that present!”

“Dais, you owe me so much maybe you shouldn’t try and protest -“

“Rob, just get out of here. You are in no position to get money out of me. You’re in no position for anything now!”

“Then why did you let me in?”

“Because you’ve been knocking on my door every other day! It’s annoying! It’s creepy! It’s borderline stalker-ish is what it is,” Daisy stood up. “And honestly, I just wanted to tell you to knock it off.”

“Daisy, stop being -“

“Psycho?”

“What, no -“

“Robert. I left and never wanted to see you ever again.”

“Dais, I thought after a certain point we’d -“

“Well you shouldn’t have fucked Sara, should you,” Daisy shoved a box into Rob’s hands. “Here, I took some of your boring finance books by mistake.”

She lifted the green fabric resting on top of the box. “And you can give Sara her green dress back too. It really is lucky. It scored another boy who couldn’t make a woman cum.”

Daisy screamed when she was finally alone.

Daisy peeled the curtains back to find flies crawling over the carcasses of their dead friends. The summer had been harsh, but Daisy didn’t need this infestation. She grabbed the dustpan she reserved for her kitchen counter and began sweeping as many insects as she could into it.

Daisy tipped them into the kitchen bin and spared no time to tie up the bag and remove it. She grabbed her keys before leaving, slipped into her sneakers, and made the trek to the waste disposal.

You really did get what you paid for in this building. Maintenance did the bare minimum, and as sweat dripped down Daisy’s back as she navigated the labyrinthine corridors, she took in just how run down the place was.

The waste disposal was a stiff metal hatch that felt like it was going to rip off the wall every time it got used. It made a harsh scraping sound when pulled open and down, revealing the dark void trash could be discarded several stories into the dumpsters below.

Daisy could feel the thin plastic of her trash move and crawl with the struggling flies inside. The sheer numbers amplified the sensation, making Daisy move with unease as she lifted the bag ready to be discarded.

It scraped and scratched off the sides before joining a free-fall into the darkness below before Daisy closed the door back up.

The rattle of the door echoed around the corridor as it slammed shut. The metallic twang reached into Daisy’s head and she winced. Daisy shook it off and retraced her steps to her door.

She met the first corner when she heard the familiar bang of the waste disposal flinging back open. Daisy expected a neighbour to be there, also discarding trash to avoid a long journey to street level themselves.

She did not expect fingertips to be gripping the edges of its entrance from the inside.

“Oh my god!” Daisy wheeled around. She started towards the waste disposal as the hands clawed their way further to safety. Daisy froze as the frequency of the scratching of nails against the metal ate away at her. The high pitch slowed her, and she watched as mangled fingertips and cracked fingernails pulled a figure out of the portal.

Her eyes bulged. The figure lay on the carpeted floor metres in front of her. Naked. Bloody. Daisy took nervous steps forward to get a better look.

The body slowly rose and fell with shallow breathing. It whistled out, unsteady. Through pierced lungs.

Another step, and Daisy saw the figure’s arms, torn to ribbons. Skin met exposed muscle met bone. Carved and clawed to the very skeleton. Hair ripped out in clumps. Blood and bruise and scabbing and wounds dotted the tapestry of torture in this soul.

The figure wheezed. Softly. Slowly.

Its arm jolted to the fluorescent bulbs casting harsh orange light on them. Daisy couldn’t move. All she did was breathe. Faster. Deeper. As panic started to wash over her.

The figure’s arm twisted towards the ground to lever itself. The other arm followed suit. Each degree of movement was accompanied by cracking. Snapping. The figure’s torso cleared itself from the ground. The head that had hung began to rise to meet gaze with Daisy.

She knew this person. Before they had been decimated. A fraction of the stranger they were last time Daisy saw them through clouded eyes.

Daisy stared into the horror’s eyes before her. Their face had been mashed and torn. Flesh flapped as though they had been dragged across sandpaper. The recesses around their eyes were sullen. Malnourished. Eaten away.

The face bore no expression. Just a nightmarish sight Daisy would see through to her last days.

Which felt upon her that very moment. It took her time before she could do anything but stare in disbelief and pure abject terror. She was uncertain that her limbs could work any better than the ghoul ahead of her, whose ligaments frayed and flopped and were permanently inflamed.

The figure showed no signs of pain. It was beyond feeling. This was life for them now. And it wouldn’t be life for them if it wasn’t for Daisy.

It began to crawl.

Daisy screamed and some underlying instinct finally kicked in. She retreated. One clumsy backwards step after another. The soiled carpet sank underfoot. Daisy dared not turn away from the horror in front of her until she could make it back to the first corner.

The figure clawed forward. It wrenched at the floor with all of its might in order to speed up pursuit. Daisy breathed and stammered as the figure began to manipulate its legs, doing its best to find some sort of footing.

Daisy squeaked as soon as the figure found some semblance of speed.

As the figure closed its distance it became clear to Daisy that she was moments away from pursuit. She had to get back home. Behind the safety of that front door, itself carved from a mighty pillar of the forest by the way she struggled with its range of motion.

She rounded the first corner, then the second, then as she progressed further the less she had her gaze behind her. She needed to move, and move fast.

But the figure also knew this. The figure had become upright. It scrambled and it hunched and it dragged its bloody and torn body towards Daisy. It wanted her. It wanted to get to her.

Daisy cried as she got within sight of her home. Her home in this decrepit building chased by a decrepit animation born of horror and torture and maiming. Why do I deserve this? Daisy thought.

She had no time to reflect. She was almost at the door.

And the figure was almost on her.

It launched itself onto Daisy’s lagging leg as she momentarily stopped to fumble her keys. She screamed what only intensified the moment the figure’s gnawed claws dug into her soft flesh. Blood rushed to the surface and out of her punctured limb as she had to now drag over double her weight towards the front door.

The figure could not speak. It could only groan and make primitive noises as Daisy rattled the key into the stiff lock keeping her from freedom. The sounds were low, and economical under the exertion and leaking oxygen. It was a miracle the figure was alive in its condition.

Daisy was just happy to be in her current condition. A couple more shakes and the key unlatched the door. Daisy dove herself into the hardwood door. It rattled in its frame and budged millimetres. It was enough. Any sense of freedom was enough.

The figure removed one claw gripping into Daisy’s leg and then swiped again. Another puncture wound as Daisy’s struggle pulled the figure closer to the threshold into Daisy’s sanctuary.

Tears streamed down Daisy’s face. Blood pumped and trickled down her calf. She twitched a grasp behind the front door and pivoted round to see the horror attached to her once more. 
The figure stabbed at her again. She screeched. It looked at her.

She saw it clearly. It was once a man. One she knew. But this was a husk of them now. Daisy’s head shook side to side.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She kicked into the figure. She stamped into the figure. She struck however she could to free herself from the clutches of the figure. It looked up at her. Pathetic. Reaching up and out to her.

Daisy closed her eyes as she pulled herself free across the threshold. The figure draped in front of her. Its head passing into her domain.

Daisy gripped at the side of the door. She breathed and made peace with herself to still the shakiness. The unease. She drained for a moment.

Then she swung the door.

There was a dull thud as the wooden door made contact with the figure’s skull. She took a look around to see the damage. She almost vomited on the spot. Daisy pulled away and hid from the sight.

And swung the door again.

Once more, wood met flesh. Blood. Bone. Crack.

She pulled the door away.

And pushed it at the figure’s prone body once again.

And again.

And again.

The thuds became more cracks. The cracks became more sodden. Solid became liquid. Groans became life lost into the air. Into silence.

The door closed perfectly into its frame after the twenty-first swing.

Daisy collapsed in a heap on the ground. She shook. She cried. The blood continued to streak down into her shoe.

She curled up into a ball before flinging her back out and away, bashing the back of her head into the wall.

Her matched the vibrations of the building. The frequency went to meet the sounds of the city outside the window. The ripples of her head melted into the rattle of the rusting fan blowing the summer air around. The thud covered the dropping of screws from the air conditioning unit. Each thud was met by another falling screw.

Daisy screamed as the unit fell from the ceiling.

And They crawled out from behind the wall.