Primal Gambit

Chapter 42: Renault Investigates the Complex

The door moaned on rusted hinges as Renault appeared, creeping into the hallway like a predator in the dark. He did not relinquish the moments stateside where he was required to exert the result from years of training for a special operations unit. His animalistic and predatory instincts were the types of traits he would have rather left behind in Siberia or some other past Hell, though now they were presenting themselves naturally. He gave no more thought to it as he crouched down, moving slowly past open doorways. The packs of squatters had not yet noticed him, lost in a volley of drug-induced haziness. The ex-soldier would have liked for it to stay that way, for no one to know that his presence in the derelict complex ever existed.

The manila envelope that Darwin had lain on Shift's nightstand for him contained a detailed blueprint of what the apartment building once resembled. Scanning the layout gave him the exact floor and room that the professor had been taken from. Getting to the fifteenth floor was going to be trickier than he initially thought. The elevators had long since deteriorated, locked on unmoving wires that dangled up the shaft, and every stairwell seemed to be clogged with refuse. There were only two ways in Renault's mind that he could ascend the building. The former, more dangerous than the latter, was to climb out the nearest window and try his luck on the fire escape – though the mixture of ash and snow that trickled down from the heavens would make the route treacherous. One misstep and Renault would fall from the sixth story to the solid asphalt below. The other option was to search each room on the floor in hopes of finding a weak ceiling that he could break through. Cracked windows gave hope to this solution, as the ash and the rain and the snow could flow indoors, soaking the old hardwood and weakening the structure.

Renault was apprehensive about entering each room, worried of being seized by chemically depraved junkies that would not bat an eyelash in sticking him for the money in his pockets. As he looked out the window at the end of the hallway he could see an old parachute dangling over the corner of an adjacent building, the torn white and red cloth whipping violently in the wind. He would not survive two floors on the fire escape, and without further contemplation he began to scour the halls – peering into each room as best he could from the halls to find a soft spot or sag in the ceiling.

Each room was dark, the floors littered with old rags, empty foodstuffs, and blown out windows. In some cases Renault would come across a corpse in mid-decomposition. The first one he approached laid against the wall just near an open doorway. Inside the room were more squatters so enveloped in their own make-believe worlds they did not notice his presence. He stopped just before the body. He was no expert, but he could tell that the body had been left untouched for some time. The way the arms rested by the torso, the skin that clung to bone just before erosion took place, and the bloated gut all told the story to Renault. He was unsure as to how long it had been there – the eyes had already sunken so deep into the sockets the ex-soldier could hardly see them. The man's jaw was wide open, rows of yellowed teeth collected sparse bits of ash. Crawling up and down his throat, using his dried tongue as a ravine were white maggots.

Renault gagged at the pungent odor that emitted from the holes in the corpse's eyes. The emptied man still wore bits of rags – the parts not collected from the other occupants of the building.

Black skies gave an ominous, almost palpable feeling of isolation to the entire dwarf city. The soldier could feel them radiating from the ground, filling him with a sense of dread.

The door to the next room he approached was closed. From within he could hear the throat tearing scream of a girl. It was obvious she had overworked her vocal cords to violent strain. The voice crackled behind the door as Renault put his gloved fingers to it. He wasn't quite sure what was going on in the room, though he could sense an aura of hatred, violation, and abuse. Unarmed, breaking down the door could lead to his own death – he was meant for more. He felt the urge to approach the drugged squatters in the next room, needles still hanging from veins, belts still wrapped, and ask them what was going on, but he knew their responses would be in little more than gibberish. A sorrowful moaning emitted from the hollow walls, from behind the closed door before him.