I held my ground for a moment and listened to the argument raging in my mind, wanting to forget all this and return to the relative safety of the dealership, but knowing I wouldn’t, knowing I couldn’t. I slid the nightstick free but kept it down against my leg as I stepped from the curb and crossed the street.
The fog parted, and I continued on to the far curb and what had once been the factory driveway. An old security and information hut sat boarded up and slowly dying a few feet from the beginning of the property, a long section of heavy though rusted chain still run across the lot entrance to prevent trespassers from driving too close to the abandoned building beyond. I pulled my flashlight from my belt, flicked it on and gave a slow sweep of the area. The beam was powerful but did little other than illuminate the fog, so I switched it off, returned it to my belt and allowed the streetlight to guide me.
Once I’d reached the chain I crouched and walked under it. The dark, ominous carcass of the factory stood before me, most of the long vertical windows blown out, the few panes still intact covered with the impenetrable filth of years of neglect. Decades before, those same myopic windowpanes had been blurred instead with sweat, while shadows, faceless and vague, submitted in silence. But I was certain those ghosts were long since exorcised. Something else was haunting this place now.
Or perhaps, only haunting me.
The thin layer of snow still blanketing the area had begun to melt, trickling and dripping from the factory to the pavement below. The windows on the first floor were boarded shut, but the large front doors had rotted and mostly fallen away, setting the mouth of the building in an eternal yawn.
I leaned closer to the opening. A partially rotted wooden plank that looked like it had fallen from above and landed there ages ago was wedged diagonally across the doorway. From within the enormous vacant structure I heard the echo of dripping water followed by a faint scratching sound. I reached again for my flashlight, aimed the beam at the plank and darkness beyond. Squatting at one end of the plank was an enormously plump rat. Making odd grunting noises, it sat back on its hind legs, reared up and bared its teeth.
Startled, I took a step back but kept the beam trained on him. The light reflected off his eyes, causing them to glow, two red orbs cutting the night. The standoff continued until finally, after a few contemplative sniffs, the rat turned, waddled to the end of the plank, and dropped down into darkness.
The acids in my stomach churned and I belched, tasted beer. Despite the chill in the air perspiration had beaded along my forehead, and my mind began to clear a bit. What the fuck am I doing? I looked back over my shoulder. The fog was so thick the dealership across the street was completely concealed by it, though the rooftop lights were just barely visible above the haze.
Something moved behind me.
I spun back around toward the factory, the flashlight in one hand, my nightstick in the other, both leveled in front of me and sweeping across the doorway in unison. Just beyond the rotted plank, partially shrouded in darkness, stood the woman.
Our eyes met and I offered a subtle nod.
She took a few steps deeper into the building then looked back at me.
I felt myself moving forward, swinging a leg over the plank and climbing through the doorway as if I no longer had complete control over myself. The flashlight flickered and extinguished. The darkness mixed with a soft cool breeze, the fear welling up in me in a single frantic rush as I shook the flashlight. The beam returned, casting a pool of light ahead of me, but by the time my eyes had adjusted I realized the woman was gone.
I stepped over a small pile of rubble and garbage and did my best to ignore the array of gut-wrenching smells. I swept the light about, searching for her, but found only a graffiti-covered wall and floors thick with debris. Scratching and then a scurrying sound I recognized as more rats momentarily distracted me, so I swung the light around.
Down a long and narrow hallway to my right, I saw a glint of light but no sign of the woman.
I carefully crossed the room, following the light at the end of the hallway. It led to another room, smaller and in even worse shape. I stopped in what was left of the doorway and saw a single candle burning on the floor, garbage strewn from one corner of the room to the next. The horrible stench of human waste filled the stale air.
The flashlight shook in my hand. I shut it off, returned it to my belt and gripped my nightstick with both hands. As I moved into the room, the flickering candlelight lapped the walls, casting shadows like thrashing demons. The woman was kneeling on the floor in the center of the room, holding something and rocking slowly. A dirty syringe, a spent book of matches and a blackened spoon lay scattered nearby. My eyes shifted; she was holding a boy in her arms—the same little boy who had hidden behind her leg at Rick’s apartment building—but now the boy was lifeless. Cradled, arms and legs dangling, his head lolled to the side, rested in the crook of the woman’s elbow, mouth open, small, swollen tongue protruding, eyes wide but seeing nothing—long dead.
Sinking deeper into madness, I shortened the distance between us. The woman’s head turned to reveal a face tormented and dirty, eyes bloodshot and terrified, cheeks hollow, dark skin pockmarked.
She glared at me like I was to blame, slowly rocked her dead son in sickly thin, needle-ravaged arms, and whimpered softly.
“You here about the plumbing?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered.
She looked away, eyes gliding to the far wall as if she’d seen something else, something more. Lips moving silently, she continued to rock the boy in her arms.
My eyes darted about the room, following the edges of light provided by the candle to the far wall, where painted in either red paint or blood were odd symbols that looked almost like hieroglyphics, hastily smeared about. What was once the door to the room had been suspended between two small stacks of chipped cinderblocks, forming what appeared to be a makeshift altar of some kind. Something lay beneath it in a heap on the floor, dark and unmoving, but I couldn’t make out what it was.
The woman moved, diverting my attention back to her. She laid the boy on the filthy floor gently and with great care then began to pull at the belt holding her robe closed. Bony fingers worked furiously until the belt was undone or torn loose, and the robe had fallen open. She slid one hand beneath the boy’s head, pulled it closer and leaned over him. A single small and emaciated brown breast fell free, the nipple elongated and raw.
She held the boy close, guided her nipple to his lips and pumped the loose skin along her breast, lips again moving rapidly but silently.
“Lady,” I managed, “Christ—lady, let me—let me get you and the boy out of here.”
She looked up at me. “You here about the plumbing?”
“No, I’m not here about the goddamn plumbing!”
Her eyes rolled back in her head as if she’d lost all control of them, and her body bucked, throttled by phantom hands.
I stood frozen as a small appendage emerged directly from the cracked skin along her nipple. At first I thought it was a long hair.
But then it moved.
Another matching thing broke through the skin, moved in time with the other along the boy’s lips, as if searching for purchase. The woman’s hand tightened around her breast, and as her nipple burst the shelled back of what appeared to be some sort of beetle or cockroach squirmed free, followed by another and another. As they bled from her onto the boy’s mouth, forcing their way between his lips and disappearing between them, I realized the hair-like substance had been an antenna. The insects continued to gush from her in impossible numbers, overflowing in the boy’s mouth like renegade parts of a single clicking, pulsating mass.