Sure to Shine

Eric opened his eyes quite suddenly, his cheek pressed against the cold floor. The splitting pain in his head hadn’t relented, and as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, his stomach also screamed in protest.

Eric felt his heart pumping furiously as he looked around himself, trying to work out where Skylar was. He didn’t know what the young man had planned, and he didn’t want to trick himself into thinking that the young psychopath would refrain from attacking him again.

The flashlight was gone, but through the small amount of moonlight coming in through the broken windows, Eric realised with some shock that the shotgun was laying right next to him. He looked wildly around himself, wondering if Skylar would have left the gun if he were going far.

All around him, the old building creaked and groaned. Eric had never been so scared in all of his life, but he swallowed it down. If he panicked, he would get himself into even more trouble. The only way to get out of this situation was to stay calm and think logically.

Still, even if Skylar had left, Eric was still in trouble. He weighed the facts and he tried to adjust to his splitting headache. He was in an old building which was most likely out of bounds. It looked incredibly unstable and Eric didn’t know where it was safe to put his feet. There was still the chance that Skylar was lurking around somewhere, and even if Eric had the shotgun with him, he knew Skylar well enough now to know he probably would have some other sort of weapon on him. Finally, there was the fact that this building was in a rough area of a rough city, and there was evidence that other people came here, too. Eric didn’t fancy bumping into some drunk and violent teenagers who might like to finish off what Skylar had started.

Eric leapt out of his skin as there was suddenly a huge amount of banging and clattering from down the hall, as though someone had toppled over a heavy filing cabinet. He didn’t know if he imagined the floor shaking violently, or if it actually had. Eric didn’t know how stable this building was. Thirty years of water damage and neglect would surely leave its mark in more ways that streak marks down the walls.

Another bang echoed through the hall outside. This time it sounded like a heavy door slamming. Eric, his heart beating furiously, grabbed the gun and aimed it at the doorway. He had no clue how to use the gun, but he hoped that if anyone else was thinking about attacking him, they might think twice when they saw that he was armed.

Several long minutes of eerie silence followed, before Eric pulled himself to his feet, still clutching the gun in both hands. The soft, spongy floor worked to his advantage now, muffling his footsteps as he moved across the dark room towards the door, his heart thumping furiously. He was terrified, but the adrenaline rushing around his bloodstream was making sure that he was ready for anything.

Eric peered cautiously out of the door. The stairs to his left were pitch black without the flashlight, and he knew it would be incredibly dangerous to try to navigate down them in darkness this heavy. To his right, it was slightly lighter. Eric knew the safest bet would be to try and find a way down which wasn’t as dark as the stairs to his left, but he was unsure of how safe the corridor was. Apart from the obvious fact that he might not survive falling through the floor and hitting the concrete below, there was also strong evidence that someone else was in the building, and that they were hanging around in this area.

Eric knew this, because he could see a large mass of the floor which hadn’t been there when he and Skylar had arrived. Judging by the sound earlier, Eric thought he was right in guessing it had been a filing cabinet. The mass on the ground looked suspiciously like one which had been tipped onto its side.

Straining his eyes in the suffocating darkness, Eric took a step forward, carefully followed by another. The floor groaned in protest, but held steady enough for Eric to trust it a little more. It didn’t feel as spongy here. Still, to be safe, Eric kept to the side near the wall, hoping that the floor would be sturdier here.

His steps became more reluctant as he approached the overturned filing cabinet. It was laying half in and half out of a room, and Eric would have put money on the fact that the door hadn’t been open earlier.

He hated feeling this scared, but he forced himself to see the advantage. He was so terrified of what could be in that room that he was barely feeling the throbbing in his head or the aching in his stomach.

The moonlight was getting through a barred window high up in the wall, and Eric, whose eyes were beginning to adjust to the poor conditions, could make out that the drawers of the filing cabinet had been flung open by the force of the landing. He crouched slightly; the shotgun balanced across his knees, and squinted at the papers which had been thrown onto the floor. They were faded and yellowed with time, and most weren’t decipherable due to water damage and time. However, he could make out words here and there. Most of them were night reports from the forties and fifties, and Eric found it haunting to think that they had been here for so long, waiting, decaying.

There was another loud bang, and this time it sounded louder than any of the previous ones. Eric jumped to his feet, gripping the gun, as the noise echoed down the corridor, and he was suddenly struck with the urge to just curl up and cry.

"No," he whispered to himself. "You’re not letting this beat you, Eric."

He didn’t know if he was just in another one of Skylar’s sick tests, and until he worked out for certain if Skylar was involved he wasn’t going to show any fear. He wouldn’t give the crazy bastard the satisfaction.

There was no doubt that whatever was causing the noise was in the room Eric was standing next to. Swallowing the lump of fear in his throat and trying to calm himself with the fact that he was holding a shotgun, Eric stepped inside.

He instantly regretted it. It was much darker in this room, and in the same second as his eyes adjusted just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the room, he saw something crouched on the other side. He only saw for a brief second before whatever it was vanished, but from the little he had seen, he didn’t think it was Skylar.

Eric was paralysed with fear. Every single horror movie he had ever watched came flooding back to him, no matter how stupid he had thought they were at the time. His mind ran away with irrational ideas, telling him that it was some sort of ghost or demon, or that it was a forgotten mental patient who had never left. His breathing became shallow again, as his brain desperately tried to come up with a rational explanation of what it could be.

Perhaps he was seeing things? It was dark, after all. The little light that was filtering in was unreliable, as clouds kept obscuring the moon. Eric had taken two very hard blows to the head; there was no telling what effect this might have. For all Eric knew, he might still be unconscious.

Still, none of this was helping now, and still Eric wanted to turn and run away as fast as he could. He knew he couldn’t, however. That would alert whatever it was to his presence, and then he might be in even more trouble.

Eric took a tiny half-step back, thinking that if he carried on down the corridor walking backwards, he could make sure nothing came out of this room. Then, he would try his chances with the stairs. He would rather fall down the stairs and be a bit bashed up then be murdered by some psychotic ex-patient.

Another tiny half-step, and then it happened.

As Eric moved, something threw itself at him from behind one of the still-standing filing cabinets, which was located within arm’s reach to Eric’s right. Eric felt the dread punch him in the stomach, but his body didn’t react to the feeling of sheer horror. Instead, almost without thinking, Eric dived to the left and instinctively pulled the trigger of the shotgun. He was in luck – the gun had been cocked and it fired straight away. There was a loud bang, which made Eric’s ears ring painfully, and the recoil of the powerful weapon threw him back against the wall.

Eric’s hand stung, and he could feel blood trickling down his arm and continuing up his sleeve, but he didn’t react to that. Instead, he fired the gun again, pointing it at the lump which was now lying on the floor. He fired the gun until he stopped feeling the horror which had run through him when whatever it was had jumped out, and then the room was silent.

There was moment of sheer relief that he was still alive, and then Eric felt sick. Whatever it was looked unmistakeably human, and Eric realised that he may have to come to terms with the fact that he had just killed someone. Even worse, he may have killed Skylar, who he knew would have been messing him around. Part of Eric thought that the bastard deserved it, with the stunts he was pulling, but the half of him which talked sense was panicking.

"Oh my God," Eric moaned. "Oh shit, oh fuck …"

Eric fell silent again, wondering what the Hell he was going to do. He could run for it. No one would come down to this room, would they? If he somehow dragged the filing cabinet out of sight and closed the door, it would look like nothing had ever happened. No one would ever find the body, and if there was no body, there was no crime.

Eric couldn’t believe he was trying to work out how to cover up a murder. But it hadn’t been intentional, he thought to himself. It had been self-defence. They went easy on self-defence, didn’t they? If it was Skylar, Eric could just pretend he had never associated with him before. Eric was injured, as well. He could claim he’s been attacked, that the gun was his attacker’s. If he had killed Skylar, the gun would have Skylar’s fingerprints on it, too.

Yes, Eric thought. That would work. He could claim he had been attacked, and he had managed to get the gun off of his attacker. He had tried to get away, and he had been set upon again. He’d had no choice. He had fired instinctively. He would have died otherwise.

It was lighter. Why was it lighter?

Skylar was pointing the flashlight at Eric. Skylar. He was alive, and he was shining the flashlight into Eric’s face.

"Good work," he told him softly. "What’s your cover story, killer?"

Eric took a deep breath which caught in his throat. If Skylar was here, the other story was gone.

"I don’t need one," Eric whispered hoarsely. "I’m going to make this place look like I was never here. Hardly anyone comes here, the body won’t be found for ages. I’ll bring the gun. By the time the body’s discovered there’ll be nothing left. I can get away with it. They don’t have to know I was ever here. Dad will say I was in my bed even if they did suspect me."

Eric could barely believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was terrified, but there was a part of him which was slightly excited. He didn’t know if it was the leftover adrenaline, or if a sick part of him was actually excited.

"Well done," Skylar said softly, his voice barely audible. He shone the flashlight to the floor at Eric’s feet. Eric didn’t want to look, but found he couldn’t turn away.

"Oh, thank fuck," he muttered, when he saw what it was. Despite the part of him which had been excited, he was still overwhelmingly relieved to see that it looked like some sort of human-shaped dummy, perhaps for medical practise? The dummy was severely damaged, with huge holes blown in it. Half of its head was gone.

Eric looked over to Skylar. He was smiled.

"You passed," he told Eric simply.

Eric allowed himself to slide down the wall and sit on the floor. Skylar moved over and sat next to him. He had the bag with him, and he pulled it open to reveal a small bottle of what looked like whiskey.

He handed it to Eric who took a grateful and large swig, even though he didn’t usually drink spirits.

"Skylar," Eric said softly, as the other young man took a large gulp as well. "If I wasn’t so relieved that I wasn’t going to be murdered right now, I would shoot you and all."

Skylar laughed.

"Knew you had it in you,” he replied. “You’re coming along nicely."