The work in progress.

I've had a huge chunk of a short story I'd been working on in one of my books for months. Now that I am copying it to my hard drive I am inclined to share. I must warn you though, its not pretty. Hopefully its pretty good, but its only been rewritten once, still kinda rough. Its the story of Dan, a trust baby that has been living life in excess and hurt many along the way. Now he finds he'll have to pay the price. It is a horror fantasy that wil bounce around in time a little. Enjoy if you can, scoff if you must, but comment non the less.

Day 1

Dan wakes to find himself pasted to a cold, damp concrete floor. He wearily pulls himself up to his knees that to him feel lifeless and numb, almost as if he were carrying two dead appendages. His heavy steel hands are barely able to support the weight of the vessel known to him as his body. With vision blurred and doubled he makes out only shadows in the light, and the vicious ring in his ears made all the reverberations of a cathedral. The only sense on his body that was working, and at this point he prayed that God would quickly take it away, was his sense of smell. The air was heavy and damp swirling with the rich odors of rotting food and drink, vomit, old newsprint, oil paints, stale smoke, and wood. Sifting his hands across the floor of refuse and broken glass Dan starts to realize that he is definitely not in his lush studio apartment, which is always kept in museum like condition at all times. Just one of those perks you get when daddy is CEO of Kodak. It was Rosalita who would come everyday at 5:00 AM sharp wether cleaning be needed or not. She was part housekeeper, part spy. Being in service of the family for over 30 years one learns more than they should about their employer, but the sizable check given to her was more than enough to sway her into reporting the golden child's current activities. A Costa Rican immigrant who has never, and I mean never, spoken a single word. All reports are hand written and sent off with a driver every week. Rosalita was a relatively short, portly woman with long, thick, dark locks on a canvas of olive colored skin. Her thick, leathery hands were all the makings of a topographical map, large rolling creases and mountainous callouses. Amazingly she also moved without making a sound, seemingly floating from room to room without one shred of audible evidence. Rosalita was never seen out of her drab, grey uniform and never applied an once of makeup, yet remarkably her lips stayed a deep scarlet with a slight sheen. Her appearance was at the same time inviting and disturbing.

What little of Dan's sight that began to return drew him to a small shaft of light that illuminated a small black and white photograph glistening with broken glass. As he gazed upon it the ringing began to subside and ushered in the sounds of dripping liquids and rustling in the unlit areas of the room.It echoed and bounced from wall to floor to ceiling filling the room with all the fury of a vengeful soldier screaming to God in a battlefield of his fallen compatriots. " Christ, where the hell am I?" he mumbled to himself. He glanced around the room to find it was almost completely made of concrete, including the ceiling which housed an opening that would not even be classified as a window. Behind him was a impressive wooden door with old, rusty, iron hinges and a very weathered and distressed finish about it. Upon the door were all matters of undesirable streaks, stains, and substances. One could only guess there origins. In the corner opposite Dan where the light cast the very least was a figure. A very motionless figure. At its feet, which were very visible, was a small drain in the floor clogged with various matter such as hair, unrecognizable liquids, and cigarette butts. The putrid mess had begun to pool around the drain. In an instant Dan was taken back and fell scurrying into his corner in fear, trembling. In his hoarse, diner waitress type voice he screams, " Who the f**k are you, wha, what the f**k am I doing here?!". It did not reply. It did not move. It remained shrouded in its dark corner. Dan spotted an empty scotch bottle at his feet and flung it in despiration at his shadowy friend. It shattered on the wall just above where one would assume its head would be. Dan's ears were filled with sound of his own heavy breathing and thumping heart. His thought were filled with dread. He lunged for the wood juggernaut of a door and began clawing and scratching at it like a caged animal lodging splinters under his fingernails and in the meat of his hands. He scanned the room franticly for something to use to demolish the door. Nothing. Nothing but half empty liquor bottles, a crushed pack of Camel non-filters, and his motionless mate. Dan imagined it was silently chuckling to itself. He wanted so terribly to pull it from its little corner of black pitch and throttle it with all his might. Dan of course was more terrified than angry.

Dan paused, looked down to the floor again and grasped the beaten pack of butts and with a trembling hand placed one in his lips. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans his hand emerged with a brass zippo tightly in its fingers. "The lighter. of course!", he thought to himself," Now maybe I can see who that little bastard is and then find a way out." Dan lacked the courage to shed even the slightest amount of light into the forbidden corner where his dark friend resides. So, he slid back down to the floor and started to drink from one of the half empty bottles of spirits that was within his reach. He thought maybe after a couple of swigs he could muster up enough courage to visit the "other side". The effects of the alcohol only worsened his sense of fear and paranoia. After some time the cigs were all smoked up and lay in a heap upon the floor. The bottle was empty too. Now he was shaking and sweating so fiercely that the words that parted from his lips fumbled and fell all over each other to find their place. "Wh, wh, why am I here?" he stuttered, " I can't remember shit." Then a most unpleasant smell caught his nostrils" Aw CCChrist!" The odious emmination struck his nose like a high speed collision and immediately brought on tears from his eyes and nausea to his gut. The room had become filled with the stench of rotting flesh. With his arm over his mouth and nose he looked over to his chum. He noticed its first movement. Its foot had moved in a most unnatural way, almost as if it had separated itself from its body. Dan, filled with terror, felt the room grow cooler and the saw light growing fainter. He had no idea how long he was here or why but he knew he was running out of light.

To be continued...