The building was four stories tall, with a gray brick facade and windows with the curtains drawn in every apartment. Noah studied it from the sidewalk with his arms crossed.
"It looks normal."
He said, to which Jake replied.
"They always look normal."
They walked toward the entrance.
The intercom panel was next to the main door. Jake found the management button and pressed it.
After a silence, a voice answered—an older man's voice, with a slow, deep cadence that suggested every word had been chosen with care and placed with precision.
"Welcome."
Said the voice.
"Before you cross this threshold, you must know that what awaits inside does not distinguish between the innocent and the wicked. The souls that have dared—"
"We don't have time."
Said Jake.
"Open up."
The voice continued, unfazed.
"The souls that have dared cross these walls have met a fate that no word can—"
"Summarize."
"That no word can justly describe, because there are experiences that transcend language and embed themselves directly into the deepest fabric of—"
"I said summarize."
Insisted Jake.
"The deepest fabric of human fear, that primordial fear that precedes reason and that no preparation can—"
"Look, we don't have the whole chapter to do this."
"It can dampen it completely, and that is why I beg you, with all the gravity this moment deserves, to reconsider your—"
"Shorten your speech."
A brief silence passed before it responded.
"There are bad things inside."
"Thanks, now open up."
"You haven't heard everything—"
"We've heard enough."
"It is important that you understand the magnitude of—"
"The door."
Another, even longer silence.
"Come in."
Said the voice at last, in the tone of someone whose dignity had hit rock bottom.
"And I hope whatever's inside fucks you all."
The door latch clicked, and Jake opened it and entered along with Noah.
The lobby was normal, with mailboxes on the wall and a ceramic tile floor. The lights worked, as did the elevator, according to the illuminated panel above the doors.
Noah looked around.
"It doesn't seem—"
"Wait."
Said Jake.
Little by little the temperature began to drop for no apparent reason, since there were no open windows or drafts.
Noah noticed that the wall next to the mailboxes began to move slightly with a slow, steady pulse, as if there were something inside the wall that was breathing.
Noah extended his hand, wanting to touch it.
"Don't touch it."
Said Jake, without looking at him, and Noah pulled his hand back.
They went up the stairs because Jake didn't trust using the elevator. On the first floor, they knocked on every door and received only silence in response, the same as on the second floor.
By the third floor, Noah noticed the mirrors in the hallway—a long, narrow mirror fixed to the wall between two doors. Noah walked past it and looked at his reflection by instinct.
The reflection showed him from a perspective that didn't correspond to any point from which someone could be looking. Noah stopped in front of it and the reflection stopped as well, but half a second later.
"Jake."
Said Noah, nervousness in his voice.
"I saw it."
Replied Jake, who hadn't looked at the mirror.
"Keep going."
The fourth floor smelled different.
It was a more organic smell accompanied by a warmer sensation, like the inside of something alive, but of colossal size.
They went door by door with no results.
Until apartment four at the back, where the voices were low and overlapping—two tones mixing in a language never heard before.
Jake knocked on the door, but no one answered.
He waited a few seconds and knocked again with the same result.
He looked at the door and then at Noah.
"Look, rookie, when someone doesn't answer, you normally wait for the super to open the door."
He took a step back and delivered a kick directly at the height of the lock that made the door burst open.
Noah instinctively took a step back.
"Couldn't you just—!?"
"I don't have a key and I seriously doubt anyone's willing to help us."
Said Jake, and then he entered.
What the duo saw inside was hard to describe.
In the center of the apartment there were two humanoid figures that at some point had been human, their forms blending together at the edges in the process of becoming one. There was no violence in the movement; everything was methodical.
Jake looked at them.
"Sorry, wrong door."
He said, while his face showed deep disgust.
"I'll just say at least use protection, but anyway, if you'll excuse us, we'll leave you to continue in peace."
As he turned around, one of the figures launched an appendage that resembled an arm but served to kill. Jake dodged it to the left, drew his weapon, and opened fire.
"Shoot!"
He ordered Noah, who tried to draw his weapon. His hands found the grip, then lost it, then the entire gun traced a brief arc through the air and hit the floor with a dull thud.
Jake kept shooting.
Noah crouched, picked up the gun with both hands, and stood up. But when he looked toward the hallway that thirty seconds earlier had been empty, it now held four humanoid beings with the same blurry texture at the edges as the two in the apartment, and they were moving toward them with a terrifying calm.
Behind the four figures, the hallway stretched toward the stairs, which were infested with enemies.
"Jake."
Said Noah.
Jake looked down the hallway and then toward the other end of the apartment, which had a boarded-up window with a wall that was pulsing faster and faster.
The figures in the hallway advanced without stopping.
The two from the apartment had separated and were flanking the door.
Noah counted mentally and came to the conclusion that there were a lot of them.
"Jake, you have some kind of plan, right?"
Jake held his weapon, surveyed the layout of everything surrounding them, and didn't answer immediately.
That was not a reassuring sign for Noah.