Jess

Jess

I sprint up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Fear makes me run faster than I’ve ever done in my life.

Finally I’m on the top floor, opposite the door to the penthouse apartment, the wooden ladder up to the old maids’ quarters in front of me. I begin to climb, ascending into the darkness. Maybe I can hide out here long enough to gather my thoughts, work out what the hell I’m going to do next. I’m already pulling the hoop earrings from my ears, bending them into the right shape, making my rake and my pick. I grab for the padlock, get to work. Normally I’m so quick at this but my hands are shaking—I can feel that one of the pins inside the lock is seized and I just can’t get the pressure right to reset it.

Finally, finally, the lock pops open and I wrench it off and push open the door. I close it again quickly behind me. The open padlock is the only thing to give me away; I’ll just have to pray they won’t immediately guess I’ve come in here.

My eyes start to adjust in the gloom. I’m looking into a cramped attic space, long and thin. The ceiling slopes down sharply above me. I have to crouch so I don’t knock my head on one of the big wooden beams.

It’s dark but there’s a dim glow which I realize is the full moon, filtering in through the small, smeared attic windows. It smells of old wood and trapped air up here and something animal: sweat or something worse, something decaying. Something that stops me from breathing in too deeply. The air feels thick, full of dust motes which float in front of me in the bars of moonlight. It feels as though I have just pushed open a door into another world, where time has been suspended for a hundred years.

I move forward, looking around for somewhere to hide.

Over in the dim far corner of the space I see what looks like an old mattress. There appears to be something on top of it.

I have that feeling again, like I did downstairs when I found the concierge. I don’t want to step any closer. I don’t want to look.

But I do, because I have to know. Now I can see what it is. Who it is. I see the blood. I understand.

He’s been up here all along. And I forget that I am meant to be hiding from them. I forget everything apart from the horror of what I’m looking at. I scream and scream and scream.