The Noxious Neighbors Part 9
At first he thinks it’s the exhaustion causing him to hallucinate. The room is getting darker and darker. A vague blackness is building towards the center and the threads of the carpet are standing up on end. He blinks and there are two bright spots that are growing and glow amongst the dark abyss like red hot coals suspended in air. He doesn't recognize that they are eyes until he realizes they are looking at him.
The darkness falls and forms around the eyes and while the chant hums through the door the shadow begins to take form. A head takes shape behind the eyes and a body below it. PB sees the form of a man with two bright red eyes that stare unconscious from the center of the room. PB sees the man coming alive as the eyes spark awake: it scans the room and PB can feel it looking at him.
He knows there is no reason to try to find a weapon, this thing is not of this earth and it is quite possible there is no defense. He steps back towards the door. The shadow is between him and the window. It is at least eight feel tall, its head cramped up against the ceiling. Its eyes burn and PB feels a terror like he had never felt before.
The mouth opens below the eyes and the shadow screams. It's the scream PB heard the first night he moved in. The shadow shakes its head violently like a bull about to charge. It is backing up against the far wall and PB steps back as well, closer to the door. He can hear Lord Zaldig's voice in the hall, crying out over the rest, the words ugly and breathless.
The shadow screams again and brings its head down. Loose papers from some of PB’s boxes fly around the room and circle the shadow. The eyes are getting brighter and the whole body of the apparition seems to expand and deflate like its breathing.
“Call it off Zaldig!” PB cries through the door.
“Never! You will pay for your resistance and your meddlesome tom foolery!”
The shadow is gathered on the far side of the room, its form complete and defined in front of the plaster wall. PB steps back a few more steps and has nowhere go, his back is to the door. The shadow retracts inward, like it’s taking a deep breath. PB reaches back and slowly unlocks the door. He keeps his hand on the knob and the shadow’s eyes burn blood red. It lunges forward at the same time PB hurls the door open and the world is drowned by a flash and a deafening scream.
He awakes and chokes on the smoke. Both he and the door were blown out of the way into the kitchen. The door lies on top of him, half of it singed. He pushes it off and crawls under the smoke to the main room.
The whole apartment is engulfed in fire. The orange and yellow flames eat hungrily at the walls and carpet and along the edge of the ceiling. What used to be the hall between the two apartments is now a horrifying inferno and there are no signs of any of the cloaked followers of Zaldig or the shadow itself.
PB is choking and all he can do is jump up in desperation and run blindly for the window. The smoke pumps into his eyes and throat and the tongue of the flames licks at his face and arms. He crashes head on through the window and for a moment there is peace as he falls through the open air of the late summer evening.
He lands on the cement below awkwardly and his right leg goes crunch. He rolls along the cement and howls in pain as the glass from the window rains down around him. The left side of his face feels like it’s on fire. All he sees is red as he reaches down and feels where the tibia bone in his leg has punctured through the skin.
The fire is devouring the whole building. He drags himself away as the staff from the Peruvian restaurant stream out into the parking lot along with a crowd of patrons who stare on in terror as the last of the roof implodes and the flame engulfs the entire building. PB goes in and out of consciousness as fire trucks appear and there is water and flashing light everywhere. Police are motioning for the crowd to move back as passer by’s and neighbors join the throng.
Nobody seems to notice PB lying there. The fire men run by lugging hoses and oxygen tanks and paramedics look after a woman who is having a panic attack. The little dog she was walking watches the proceedings calmly. PB just lies there by himself until Officer Timmons and Officer Schelznek are standing over him.
“How are you doing there guy?” Schelznek asks and PB’s not sure if he’s alive or dead or dreaming.
“There’s people in there,” he manages to cough out and points up to the inferno.
“Not that we hear. We heard from the fire guys that they got everybody out of the restaurant,” Timmons assures him.
“Not the restaurant. Upstairs!”
“Don’t you live up there?”
“Yes, but I_”
“Take it easy guy, your probably just in shock,” Timmons pauses and studies the crumbled figure on the ground below him “Man, how did you even get down here?”
“I jumped.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to move back in,” Schelznek informs him.
They all look over as the far wall of the building collapse sending a fire ball up into the sky and over the heads of the watching crowd.
“Yeah, I don’t think this place is gonna work out.”
“Just take me to this hospital,” PB mutters
“Oh man, look at his leg! Brent, look at his leg! Man, that is horrible. That is really bad.”
Timmons is pointing with one hand and tapping his partner on the shoulder with the other. Schelznek takes out a smart phone and snaps a photo of the exposed bone.
They finally put PB on a stretcher and load him into an ambulance. He’s sharing it with the old woman who had the panic attack. She’s medicated and sleeping soundly in the stretcher next to him. They pump PB’s vein with something to dull the pain as well and he begins to fade out. He is finally going to sleep. He is finally getting to rest.
“The guy with the leg laceration is out,” the paramedic in the back yells up to the two in front.
“Okay. Keep him on the whole way and make sure the lady’s heart rate is steady until we get to Brookside. Also I think that we should a keep an eye out for- HEY!”
The ambulance halts suddenly and the paramedic in the back is jolted into one of the supply panels.
“What the hell?” he growls.
“Sorry Lance. Some bald asshole walked out in front of us. Creepy looking jerk too. Has an ugly handle bar mustache.”
The ambulance pulls away and continues towards the hospital. The bald man makes his way across the street and disappears into the bushes on the other side.
THE END
Be sure to catch the next adventure in “PB James and The Man at the Top”. Starting on September 19th here on Dublin’s World.
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