The Darkness Beneath

10

Lori had made it about ten feet from the corner. It might have taken her five minutes, or it might have been thirty. She had moved at an agonizingly slow pace, struggling to maintain her footing. Before starting on this stretch of her insane escape plan, she had wiped her hands on her shirt trying to dry them as best as she could. Her palms had resumed sweating almost immediately and were now just as bad as ever, if not worse. With each shimmy further along the wall, she could feel the slick skin of her palms sliding along the concrete, slipping and struggling for any solid purchase.

Only ten more feet, she thought. Only ten more feet and you're on your balcony and just a short run to the front door. Of course, that run to the door might be just as dangerous as her entire trek around the ledge of her apartment. Lori sighed, looking ahead to her balcony. About twenty feet past that another balcony jutted out into the Los Angeles' night.

Only ten more feet and you're on your balcony, and then just twenty more feet and you're on the neighbor's balcony. Yeah, come to think of it, that sounded like a much better plan. Besides that whole twenty more feet of scrambling for purchase barefoot on an eight-inch ledge praying that you don't fall while struggling to balance a dog carrier on your shoulder. Okay. So maybe it's not the best plan.

She knew it wasn't, but she also did not know what other choice she had. That thing was still in her apartment. It was strong, and apparently intelligent, and maybe human. Ah, hell, she didn't know a damn thing about it other than that it could kill her, which was a risk she wanted to avoid.

Thus plan 'I'm a crazy loon walking on a ledge.'

Plus, Dean still hadn't arrived. If she could get out before he did, then maybe she could prevent him from coming in and being discovered by that beast. Was it a year already since they had met?

She'd fought to keep her copywriter and won, but she'd also found an opponent that she respected. They butted heads here and there in the weeks after that initial encounter, but they also discovered that they enjoyed butting heads with each other. Their arguments became a game, each trying to best the other, two combatants with an understanding.

They were also both workaholics and tolerant of each other's absences, something that had been missing in Lori's past relationships. They gave work their all, often pushing sixty to seventy hour work weeks when up against a deadline. It wasn't surprising that Dean was running late. He'd just been assigned a new potential account that morning and had been working on a pitch deck to try to sell Silicon Frame Productions on Spotlight 15 for their digital marketing needs. He could be all night.

Or he could walk through that door right now.

Lori had paused long enough. She resumed her slow sidle across the ledge.

She had made it three more feet when she heard the balcony door open. It slid along its metal tracks, dead leaves from her failed vegetable garden crackling as the door skated over them.

Just beyond the door waiting in the dark, she could sense It, that thing. It no longer lashed out. It didn't rage or thrash blindly in its attempt to kill. It simply waited for her to come to it.

Well, hell.

Ahead of her lay seven feet of empty ledge, a balcony, and that thing, whatever it was. Behind her thirteen narrow feet of ledge until the slightest breathing room on the corner ledge.

Yet, two feet back waited the study window. The partially open study window.

Slowly Lori inched back. As she did, she felt as though the darkness ahead had also retreated. Was it following her. She stepped forward, back towards the balcony. The darkness inched closer, the tall form taking shape within the black. Beverly began to bark, unable to contain her fear any longer. That thing was waiting for them. If she fled to the study, it would follow.

Her palms sweated and she could feel her skin slipping against the rough exterior. Her knees ached threatening to buckle, and her shoulder screamed where the carrier strap dug into it. She didn't have long to make a decision.