The Elevator - Part 1/2 (Short)

She stood in her dilapidated hallway, dripping rain onto the frayed and faded doormat, mimicking the oil-drip stains that caked the walls of her studio. An unlabeled, orange envelope was clutched in her hands as she stared down, confused.

Who sent this?

How did it get in my hallway?

No recipient address, no return address, no stamp… no sign of forced entry. And yet there it was, sitting in the middle of her doorway inside her apartment for her to almost step on when she got in.

Mindlessly, she wandered to her worn-out bed and sat down, still staring at the envelope. It was bulky and lumpy, obviously it was not a letter. Slowly she tore the seal open, looking inside.

No.

What the fuck?

No.

How!?

This can’t be real…

But it was.

Who would send this to her? And why? For a moment she contemplated throwing it out the window, or setting it on fire. Most of all, she just wanted to run.

She didn’t feel her body rise from the bed, or her feet moving across the floor, or even the cold knob in her hand as she opened the door, stepping into the dingy hallway. Everything became a blur, all she could hear was her own heavy breath, all she could feel was the pounding of her pulse against her cold, numb skin. Then suddenly she found herself again out in the rain, running at full speed.

After a few minutes that felt like an eternity, the realization dawned that she was running from the very thing still clutched in her hands. She slowed her steps; wind, rain and city lights splashing her face as she became more aware of her surroundings. Ducking into a dreary diner, she ordered a cup of burned, luke-warm coffee and drowned it in sugar packets.

She was staring a hole into the table while she tried to still her thoughts, but that proved to only burn her anxiety deeper, so after blinking herself back into reality and taking a few deep breaths, she finally reached into the damp, crinkled envelope and pulled out one of the mysterious items that now plagued her life with uncertain fear.

Gingerly, she laid it on the table. It was a little black book with a crest embossed in the bottom right corner. The outer skin was weathered and worn. The edges of the pages between were grayed and soft with use and time.

Again, she became chambered into her own dimension of existence that she had felt when she first opened the envelope. One finger lifted the front cover open, instantly she felt cold and shivered as her thumb brushed over the embossed crest on the cover.

The pages were lined, thin and delicate, like an old bible yet oddly opaque for the weight. At the top of each page, typed out was Name and Date. As she thumbed through, she found every page to be the same.

Handwritten names and dates, a ledger… but to document what?

Faster and faster, she flipped through the pages until she reached the last. More names filled on the top 7 rows and her eyes rested on the last entry.

Daysi Huaman 12/19

Where had this book been for the last year? And why was it now hers? She flipped back to the first page, and the first entry.

Genevieve Lancier 07/70

With more questions than answers, she spent the next few minutes studying the entries on the pages. She couldn't determine an obvious pattern from the names and dates, or recognize anything of value, so she carefully placed the little black book back in the envelope with the other item. She didn’t dare take the second piece out in public. Who knows who could be watching her.

The walk back to her apartment was a blur. She couldn’t tell how long ago she’d been at the diner, or even how long she’d been walking. Once she was inside her apartment again, she quickly locked the door and pulled the shades, becoming more frantic and barricading the door with a desk. She took another few breaths to calm her nerves and sat cross legged on her bed, dumping the contents of the envelope in front of her. A shaky hand pushed the little black book aside so she could get a better look at the second piece. She stared down at it as a ringing in her ears deafened the space around her.

Money. It was a massive pile of money. She lifted the bundle and noticed a card held in the center of the wad of cash by an elastic band. The card was matte black, with a glossy crest embossed on the front. The same crest as the one on the notebook.

Her mind began to race while her fingers began counting the bills. Twenty, thousand, dollars. In hundreds.

This had to be a prank. Someone must be joking. She counted again. And again. And then examined the bills for signs of counterfeit. Nothing. She checked the black credit card. No, not a credit card. There was no magstripe, or numbers on it. No company, no name, nothing but the glossy crest. It was quite heavy, she now realized, as if it was made of metal.

Suddenly her chest tightened and she filled with dread. How did this get into her apartment? And why?

“Where did you come from?” She began to mutter it, over and over, until it became a crying scream.

“Where did you come from!?”

As quickly as she could, she stuffed the book and the money with the card back into the envelope. She then ran over to a trunk in her closet and buried the envelope under blankets and clothes.

Slamming the trunk shut, she kicked the closet door closed as she crawled away from the closet and dragged herself back onto her bed, shivering and gasping for air.

Gripping her pillows, she stared into her empty apartment. As the hours of the night passed, she barely blinked, barely made a sound save her slow, panicked breathing. The dim light of the room cast an ugly yellow filter across the wet, dark green walls that usually caused her disdain yet now, suddenly felt somewhat of a comfort. Her bloodshot eyes greeted a pale, gray morning and in a daze, she readied and left for work.

Days continued in the same way, and then weeks. After over a month of sleepless nights and foggy days, she lost weight, sanity and her job. At least she thinks she lost her job, she couldn’t quite remember.

For a while after, she kept herself away from her apartment except to sleep and shower, in an attempt to forget about the envelope. But no one ever came, for her or ...it. She wandered aimlessly through the city, desperately trying to escape a burden she didn’t even understand. Enough time passed in the same way until she came home late one night to an eviction notice on her door. Sighing, she dragged herself inside, notice in hand, and crumpled into a silent heap on the floor.

Finally, she fell asleep, waking up many hours later in the early hours of the morning, still on the floor.

It felt like death, as though her entire body had a migraine. When her eyes blinked open, she noticed the crumpled eviction note on the floor near her face, and behind it, she saw the trunk peeking out from her closet. The lid open, and blankets rifled out.

In an instant she was on her feet and scrambling over to the closet. Clawing down through the blankets she felt the paper of the envelope and wrenched it out, pouring the money and notebook out from the envelope. As the notebook spilled out and onto the floor she froze. What was she doing? She had been terrified to acknowledge the existence of the envelope for weeks. She wanted nothing to do with the unsettling way twenty thousand dollars and a mysterious notebook of names just appeared in her apartment.

But really, nothing had happened right? Yet… fuck.

She couldn’t use this money, but she had to do something.

Pulling out her clunky beast of a laptop, she settled onto her bed, bringing the notebook with her. All of the names listed in the notebook were women’s. After hours of searching, she was shivering with cold and sweating in fear.

Beginning with Genevieve in 1970, and ending with Daysi Huaman in 2019, every entry in the black book was a woman who had tragically and mysteriously committed suicide or gone missing and left in a cold case.

Genevieve had taken herself to a remote mountain valley in Norway and ceremoniously set herself on fire. It was speculated that she was a spy during the cold war.

Another entry was a female political science major who was reporting on Russian scandals in the 80’s.

Daysi was a journalist, speaking out against her government in Peru and went missing waiting for a bus.

But none of it explained why she had the book now. She wasn’t important like most of these women, she was nobody. A nobody with a mysterious ledger of dead women, twenty thousand dollars and not a single fucking clue. Other than the high probability that she is next.

She had to figure this out, even if it killed her.

She scooped up her jacket, stuffed the money and the notebook back into the envelope and snuck out of her apartment, this time at least with a destination in mind. The trouble was, she only had a vague idea of what she was looking for.

It was mid-day, but the sky was dark and cloudy. Had it been raining for a month? It felt like it had, and she couldn't remember when she had last seen the sun. Losing momentum, she pulled out the notebook and studied the crest. Soon she began to recognize what it was. A goat’s head with a pentagon halo, and she knew where she had seen it before.

She began running again as fast as she could, heading for downtown. Once she reached her destination she was surrounded by suits on lunch and heading to mid-day meetings.She had been moving seamlessly through the throngs until it caught her eye. Embossed or carved into the side of the sand-colored stone of an unlabelled, yet grandiose office building, she approached the massive glass front.

Her heart was pounding, her pulse was racing and she wrapped her fingers around the massive square door handle. She took a deep breath and pulled.

The door jilted, but otherwise didn't budge. She was too stunned to move for a moment. In the reflection of the glass she saw businessmen and women sauntering by, not even noticing the drabby looking girl, an exact opposite of the shiny building she was trying to breach. She stepped away, confused and uncertain.

Taking a walk around the perimeter of the building proved to be even more confusing. There didn't seem to be a single emergency exit or maintenance door at all. No ladders or staircases to be seen.

As she rounded the front of the building again, she contemplated…

“One way in, one way out.”

Feeling tired again, she wandered back to her apartment. Checking the hallways and using the fire exits to avoid her landlord. Once back in her studio, she collapsed on her bed and fell into a deep sleep. As she slept, she dreamt of a dark hall, an elevator and a goat.

It was past 2:00AM when she woke again. Her apartment was dark except for the street lights and signs flashing through her open shades. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt something. It pulled her out of bed and without thinking she began peeling off her clothes and headed for the shower. The hot water felt foreign, but welcome. When was her last shower? Oh god.

After freshening up, she changed into some jeans and a hoodie, grabbed the mysterious envelope and headed back downtown.

This time she was on high alert. Even the air around her felt like it was charged with electricity. She noticed stars in the sky as she glanced up, wondering when the clouds had finally cleared. As she gazed at the sky however, she noticed a shadow across the street. A shadow directly across from her, matching every step.

She sped up, slowed down, the shadow mimicked it all. Through deep breaths, she told herself to stay calm and focus on her destination, trying to ignore her shadow. For a while it worked, maybe too well. Suddenly she realized though she could hear her shadows steps, he was no longer in her peripheral.

She stopped on a dime and as if rehearsed, he did too. Slowly, she turned around, to see a hooded shadow. She couldn’t define any features but she knew they were staring at each other. After a few second the shadow began to run at her, so she spun on her heel and ran like a bat out of hell.

How was she running this fast? She hated running. Why was this effortless? It felt like she was flying and soon, the stone goat face was in her view, like a beacon shining just for her. Now she just had to hope the door would miraculously open.

The card!

She yanked it out of the envelope, still running at the speed of sound and swiped it against the reader just as she felt the cold of the shadow’s fingers grabbing at her clothes and neck.

The door swung open and she collided onto marble floors as the door locked and closed behind her. She braced to feel hands grab her and pull her up but when she felt nothing she whipped around to look out the front glass walls. No shadow, no pedestrians, no loiterers, no one left or right. Not even a piece of trash dancing in the breeze. The pristine street outside was quiet and still.

She stayed, staring out the window, checking up and down the street. Nothing happened. No one came. She began wondering if she should leave.

Ding!

She heard it, along with the slide of an elevator door and it made her jump. She quickly assessed the cavernous marble hall she was standing in. The floors, the walls, even the ceiling was white and gray marble. The ceilings must have been over 30 feet tall. All it contained was one single elevator.

Light poured out of the open door and onto the marble, a stark contrast to the red velvet interior she could see of the elevator. She remained frozen, standing only a few feet into the grand hall.

Great.

Go back outside and get murdered by a shadow, or get into the ominous elevator.

“Fuck me” she sighed as she cautiously approached the open door of the elevator.

“...So, they’re letting you think for yourself huh?” The elevator didn’t respond, but she stepped in anyway.

“Too late now, I guess” she shrugged.

Now inside, she saw there was only one button. One button, period. No emergency stop, no speaker button, in fact, no speaker at all.

She began to sweat and become more uncertain of her decision. She closed her eyes and took a deep gulp of air, exhaling slowly.

“Don’t be a pussy” she whispered.

As she did, she reached out to press the elevator button. She heard the door begin to close and glanced up. The shadow was back, staring at her from the outside, standing stock still at the glass door.

She gasped and fell back onto the elevator floor and as the door closed, the shadow had once again disappeared. Now on the floor clutching her knees, she felt the panic rising and tried to calm it.

“A silicone chip inside her head, gets switched to overload,

And nobody’s gonna go to school today, she’s gonna make them stay at home”

She quietly sang to the Boomtown Rats “I Don’t Like Mondays”, while she waited for the elevator to come to a stop.

Music was always the one thing that could help her control her emotions. So why the hell was she having to provide her own soundtrack right now?

“Its just rude, elevator! ...Where’s my instrumental version of Paint It Black?” she muttered.

Almost as if in response, the elevator came to a stop and moments later, the door slid open.

All she could see outside of the elevator was an ambient hall with the same red coverings and carpet as the elevator. Slowly, she stepped out. The plush, dark red carpet was decorated with gold threaded trim. To the left was a red door and beside it, a man in a suit sitting in a wingback. Realizing she was in someone else’s presence startled her but she managed to keep her composure and stayed planted.

Deep breaths. Fake it till you make it.

She still didn’t dare move. She didn’t trust her legs not to give out just yet.

“Did you bring it?” the low voice came from the sitting suit.

What did I bring? What the hell did I bring!?

Eventually becoming aware of her white-knuckled hold on the envelope, she reached in and instinctively pulled out the twenty grand.

She couldn’t see the suit’s face. It was hiding in the shadows, but he motioned to a box on his side table, open and empty. She placed the money in the box and he promptly clacked it shut, making her jump.

“Go through” he instructed and became gravely silent and still.

At first she hesitated, but hurried to reach for the knob once he impatiently shifted in his chair. She was in such a flurry to get out of the uncomfortable presence of the suit, she didn't care what was on the other side of the door.

But that was ten seconds ago…

This new room was dark. Very dark. The only light came from a chandelier in the center of the room. Its purple light bathing only a single, black round table underneath it, in violet hues.

Before stepping into the purple haze, she felt the card still pinched between her palm and the clutched envelope in her right hand. Discreetly she shifted the card to her back jeans pocket and made her way to the table, placing the envelope in front of her.

“Open it” a deep, hoarse voice commanded. She felt it vibrate through her bones.

Startled, she did. She opened the envelope and set the book down on the table.

“I said open it” the voice commanded with calm impatience. She opened the book, not to any specific page. She heard an impatient sigh and the book started to flurry through the pages in a gust of wind until it settled open on the last page of entries. Staring down at the page, handwriting began to scribble itself on the next available line. As the date is hurriedly scratched in, she leaned closer to see the new entry. The blood drained from her face immediately and she couldn't breathe. It was her own writing.

Ella Shepherd 07/20

She began to sweat, her eyes started to tear up in a fearful rage.

“It’s your turn Ella”

Like hell! She thought to herself, as she spun on her heel and raced for the door. As she flung open the door and dove back into the hall, her eyes were locked onto the open elevator. She barely noticed that the room was gone. When she turned around, all that filled the blackness of a room that no longer existed was a purple glow of light.

The elevator closed instinctually.

Now the fear was beginning to catch up. She started to shake and clutched the walls for support while the elevator descended.

“And daddy doesn't understand it, he always said she was good as gold,

And he can see no reasons cuz there are no reasons

What reasons do you need to be shown?”

Ding!

Almost as if she knew it was coming, her body unfolded and rose from the floor as the door sounded open. Like a runner, releasing off the line at the start of a race.

Except a runner has a finish line with a cheering crowd to greet him.

She ran across the grand marble hall, reached the glass door and... Crashed to the floor. The door was locked, just like the other day. Panicked, she started looking around for something, anything that could help her escape. There was no card reader on the inside. As she scrambled to her feet yet again, she heard something mechanical latch and whir; large steel doors began coming down from the ceiling across the entire glass front.

As her gaze followed the metal shields threatening her only chance of freedom, her eyes came back down and there he was again. Staring her down from the other side of the glass still hiding in his own shadow. Even though she couldn't see his face, she knew he was smiling at her. She glared back and the metal came between them, blocking out all of the light from the street lamps and the shadow.

She heard the final latch of the metal sealing in place and set off in a fit, screaming, kicking and punching the metal doors, hoping someone, anyone outside would hear her.

Outside on the street, a pedestrian passing the building stops and admires the massive stone walls and the towering glass front. Looking in through the glass, they marvel at a beautiful, but empty grand hall, with a single elevator.

- - -

The hall is completely filled with blackness.

Exhausted, bruised, cut and hoarse, she slides to the cold marble floor, blanketed in darkness. She begins sobbing until they become silent. Blackness. Blackness and cold, its all she can feel and see.

Until,

Ding!

As she lifts her head, the elevator’s light spills out onto the marble floor again and she stands up, squaring her shoulders.

“That book is mine.”

To Be Continued in The Little Black Book, Part 2/2