Arthur reached his apartment building just after the rain started turning heavier, the drops striking the sidewalk hard enough to sound almost metallic beneath the weak glow of the lobby lights. The old brick complex looked worse tonight than usual, with long cracks spreading across the outer walls and several dark windows hanging slightly open despite the weather outside. Arthur stopped near the entrance for a moment while adjusting his umbrella and staring upward at the higher floors. He suddenly realized he could not remember the last time he had actually seen one of his neighbors.
That bothered him more than it should have.
Normally somebody used the lobby around this hour. Mrs. Patterson from the third floor usually watered her plants before dinner, and the college kid near the laundry room always came home blasting music through cheap headphones loud enough for everyone nearby to hear the bass through the walls. Tonight the building looked dead quiet from top to bottom. Arthur felt that same uncomfortable knot tighten slowly behind his ribs again while rainwater dripped steadily from the edge of his umbrella onto the cracked concrete steps.
He told himself people were probably staying indoors because of the weather.
The explanation worked for maybe ten seconds.
Then Arthur noticed the front doors.
Both glass entrance doors stood slightly open despite the heavy wind outside, and deep scratches covered the lower half of the metal frame around the handles. Arthur frowned immediately while stepping closer because the marks looked fresh enough that rainwater had not fully washed the exposed metal clean yet. The scratches were long too, uneven and jagged like something had dragged sharp tools repeatedly across the surface while trying to force its way inside.
Arthur crouched slightly to examine them better.
"They really need building security around here," he muttered quietly while running one finger carefully near the edge of one damaged section without touching it directly. The grooves looked too deep for ordinary vandalism, almost carved into the metal instead of scratched across it. Arthur suddenly became very aware of the silence inside the lobby beyond the half-open doors. No television noise. No elevator hum. No footsteps from upstairs. Nothing.
Behind Arthur, stretched long beneath the flickering lobby light, his shadow slowly spread toward the doorway while the thing hidden inside it focused silently on the dark entrance ahead. Something inside the building noticed that attention immediately and froze wherever it had been moving several floors above them. OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, the entity thought viciously while reality itself tightened softly around the edges of Arthur's shadow. WHY ARE THERE ALWAYS MORE OF YOU %^$#ING THINGS IN APARTMENT BUILDINGS.
Arthur stepped into the lobby.
The smell hit him first.
Not strong enough to overpower the air completely, but noticeable once he crossed the doorway, damp carpet mixed with mold and something faintly rotten lingering underneath both. Arthur grimaced slightly while shaking rainwater from his umbrella near the entrance mat. The lights overhead buzzed weakly, flickering every few seconds hard enough that the entire lobby dimmed and brightened in uneven pulses. Arthur stared at the ceiling while the old fluorescent bulbs hummed above him. "Electrical problems again," he muttered tiredly.
The elevator doors stood open at the far end of the lobby.
Arthur immediately stopped walking.
The inside of the elevator looked wrong somehow. One of the ceiling lights had burst, leaving half the interior dark while the remaining light flickered weakly against deep stains covering the floor and lower walls. Arthur narrowed his eyes slightly while staring across the lobby because for one quick second he thought something inside the elevator had moved.
Then the light flickered again.
Nothing stood there afterward.
Arthur adjusted his grip on the grocery bag and forced himself to exhale slowly through his nose. The building was old. Old elevators made noises and cast strange shadows sometimes. That was normal. He started toward the staircase instead.
The stairwell door felt unusually heavy when Arthur pushed it open.
Cold air drifted down immediately from the upper floors, carrying the same strange metallic smell hanging outside in the rain mixed with something sharper underneath. Arthur stepped inside slowly while the stairwell light above him flickered hard enough to briefly throw his shadow across the wall beside him in stretched uneven shapes. He looked upward automatically toward the higher floors. The darkness above the fourth-floor landing looked almost solid.
Arthur hated that thought immediately.
Darkness was not supposed to look solid.
He started climbing anyway.
His footsteps echoed sharply through the stairwell while rain tapped softly against distant windows somewhere higher inside the building. Arthur counted steps automatically to keep himself focused on something normal while climbing past the second floor. Thirty-two steps between landings. Same as always. That helped a little.
Halfway to the third floor, something moved above him.
Arthur stopped instantly.
The sound had been soft but unmistakable, a quick scraping noise against concrete followed by what sounded disturbingly like several fast footsteps crossing the landing overhead. Arthur looked upward hard enough that his neck hurt slightly from the sudden movement. The stairwell above him remained completely dark and completely silent.
"Hello?" Arthur called carefully.
No answer came back.
Arthur stood frozen for several more seconds while his pulse hammered hard enough that he physically felt it in his fingertips gripping the grocery bag. The silence afterward somehow felt worse than the sound itself because now he knew something had definitely made that noise even if he could not see what it had been. He suddenly became very aware that nobody else in the building seemed awake.
Then something dripped onto the stair beside him.
Arthur looked down immediately.
A thick dark liquid slowly slid across the edge of the concrete step near his shoe before dripping onto the stairs below in heavy uneven drops. Arthur stared at it while his stomach tightened hard enough to make him feel slightly sick. The liquid looked black beneath the weak lighting, though hints of dark red showed whenever the flickering stairwell bulb brightened overhead.
Arthur slowly looked upward again.
Another drop fell from somewhere above him.
Then another.
Arthur felt real fear then.
Not nervousness.
Not discomfort.
Actual fear.
His brain immediately tried offering explanations anyway because that was what Arthur's brain always did when things stopped making sense. Broken pipe. Rust water. Leaking paint. But none of those explanations matched the thick dark drops slowly running down the stairwell wall above him.
Behind Arthur, his shadow stretched silently upward across the stairs.
Something several floors higher suddenly panicked.
The creature hidden near the fifth-floor landing had been crawling slowly downward through the darkness until moments earlier, drawn by the sound of movement and the warmth of living flesh somewhere below. Now every broken instinct inside its ruined body screamed at it to flee while something far older and vastly more dangerous focused directly on it through the shadows covering the stairwell walls. ARE YOU ACTUALLY DROOLING ON THE STAIRS, the entity snarled silently with exhausted fury. YOU DISGUSTING LITTLE @#$%ING IDIOT.
The thing upstairs bolted instantly.
Arthur heard it.
Heavy movement exploded somewhere above him while multiple footsteps slammed rapidly across concrete hard enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling overhead. Arthur physically jumped backward against the stairwell railing while staring upward into the darkness as the sounds raced away from him toward the upper floors.
Then silence returned.
Arthur stayed completely still.
His breathing sounded too loud now. Every small noise inside the stairwell suddenly felt magnified, from the flickering lights overhead to the rain tapping softly against distant windows several floors away. Arthur realized his hands were shaking slightly around the grocery bag.
He looked down at the dark liquid again.
Gone.
The stair looked completely clean except for old stains and chipped concrete worn smooth from years of use. Arthur stared at it in disbelief while trying to understand where the liquid had gone so quickly. He knew he had seen it. He knew it.
"Okay," Arthur whispered quietly.
His voice sounded strained now.
"Okay. Something's wrong."
Saying it out loud somehow made the fear worse instead of better.
Arthur rubbed one hand slowly across his face while trying to think clearly through the adrenaline crawling beneath his skin. He could still go back downstairs. Leave the building. Find somewhere else for the night. A hotel maybe, though he had not passed any open ones earlier.
Then another thought hit him immediately afterward.
All his stuff was upstairs.
His clothes.
His documents.
His coffee machine.
Arthur stared upward into the darkness again while rainwater tapped steadily against the stairwell windows higher above him. The building suddenly felt enormous around him, every floor stacked above his head like layers of something hollow and waiting. He hated how ridiculous that sounded even inside his own thoughts.
Still.
He could not stay standing in the stairwell forever.
Arthur adjusted his glasses slowly and tightened his grip on the grocery bag hard enough to crinkle the paper slightly. "Probably an animal," he muttered quietly while forcing himself to start climbing again. "Big raccoon maybe."
Even terrified, part of him still sounded annoyed about it.