Author´s note: Sorry for late update on this one. Been buried in work until today.

Enjoy:)

Chapter 5

Nobody greeted you.

Your hands trembled. Your heart beat like a hammer in your chest. You quickly turned around. Fear in your stare.

Only silent fog and its white curtains.

Your gaze went up to the dark windows above. No faces framed by the windows judged you. Yet you could not ignore their gaze. You lowered your head. Nelly´s bar waited. One last corner.

A small burger joint to your left caught your eye. Empty parking lots surrounded its gloomy walls. Red broken letters shaped two words over the main entrance.

"Happy Burger"

You walked up to the doors. Hunger gnawed from within. You left with an empty stomach.

Your hope for a meal pulled you from the path. A cheap meal sounded good. Handled by apathetic employees with glued smiles in their faces for sale. They never demanded for your credit card. They only smiled and nodded to draw you back. Eat, pay, leave, return, eat, pay leave, return.

Back to the food bin.

You pulled the door handle.

The lock rattled and clogged. Broken.

You glanced back at the sign to your left. This place shouldn´t be locked at this hour. You tried to wipe years of grime from the window. No luck. You glanced down. Frozen stiff on the spot.

A tiny pink shoe, laces spread out. Its hole empty and turned to the side by your feet. Dirty and a small bottle rested inside it.

A cold chill crawled down your spine. You bent down, picked the tiny bottle up and put it in your pocket.

You acquired vitamin drink.

You backed away from the joint. Your appetite lost. Frightful eyes moved to the door and waited for the broken lock to crack open. To glide up and the customers inside to come out.

Hungry.

Another shadow appeared from the mist as you backed away. Another car, a blue pickup. Rusty. Forgotten. Abandoned.

You hesitated.

The cellphone in your pocket slept peacefully. You dared not approach. With the beast fresh in memory, you feared these modern sarcophagi of civilization with rejuvenated vigor. Unarmed. If anything came for you then you would be its prey. Hunted. Overwhelmed. Assaulted. And now you know what will happen if they caught you.

Nobody would come to your aid.

Nelly´s bar waited next to it. Blue awnings with the name in faded white over obscured windows. A payphone next to the entrance. A few meters and you would have arrived at your destination.

Would the driver wait for you inside the bar? Would it help you escape? Would you trust it?

Faint hope in the back of your mind. Yet you hesitated out of fear and distrust, incapable of movement.

Move or have the decision made for you.

You stepped sideways with your eyes on its hood. The car´s grimy headlights followed every step you took as you circled around. A beast that ogled your movements eerily. You froze as fear sunk its claws inside your legs. You trembled.

Don´t stop. Move.

The noise erupted from your pocket. Something approached in the mist. Something big. Out of your sight, it stopped in the mist. You saw nothing. Didn´t wanted to see anything. Another car, parked further down the street, half its form concealed in the mist, rumbled.

The car creaked and something dragged it into the mist backwards. Rubber tires screeched against the brakes. A heavy weight pressed the vehicle down.

A child´s play.

You ran for the entrance. Pulled the handle and rushed inside. Shut the door behind you.

You trembled with your back against the door. Dim daylight illuminated the bar through the layers of old newspaper pages. The cellphone in your pocket whispered and returned to sleep.

Safety.

Once your heart eased, you paid attention to the condemned interior. A broken counter with a stained cash register nailed to it. Dirty white tiles clung to the floor, ripped to pieces among corny cement. Holes after screws scared the walls. A restroom at the end of a small hallway. No stools, no tables, no service. No customers.

No hope.

Abandoned and left to decay.

Like you.

Your legs threatened to give in. Only your breath reached your ears. What would you do now?

Something on the dirty table caught your gaze.

A bottle of brandy waited on the counter. A postcard rested against it.

You moved over to it without any choice, picked the card up. The front, a photo of a white rabbit in the forest. You flipped it over and read the scribble that awaited you.

Restless.

Thirsty.

Drunk.

Tired.

Sleepy.

Butterflies.

Mail-man…

You frowned and glanced down at the address, marked and ringed in with red.

Wood side Apartments: Room 202.

With careful hands, you pulled out the map over the counter. Addresses and street names. You stopped at the one from the postcard, down at Katz Street.

Not far from the bar.

You put the postcard in your pocket.

Drunkard´s Poem acquired.

Your eyes moved up to the bottle. Your hand gripped around its neck and shook it.

Half-full with alcohol.

Warm alcohol.

With your cold fingers, empty stomach and frightened nerves, temptation grew for a drink. The taste of booze was no stranger for you. Not after the countless nights out in your desperate search for company. Surrounded by drunken swine which advanced on you constantly their bodies and persistent gluttony. What could go wrong after the first glass?

You acquired brandy. Want to drink it?

Yes or no?

With the bottle head to your mouth you only wanted a swift escape from this nightmare. You held your hand back as your phone rang. A question appeared in your mind as reminder.

Who enjoyed brandy straight from the bottle?

You knew the answer.

With saddened gaze, you chose.

Drink brandy?

No.

You corked the bottle and put it in your pocket. The phone continued, you didn´t answer. Only indifference painted your mental state as you moved through memories.

One signal.

Who introduced you to brandy?

Two signals.

Who did you met in a bar?

Three signals.

Who is calling you?

Four signals.

Who made you cry?

Five signals.

Well?

The phone stopped.

No answer left your lips. No decision reached. Only you and your hesitation as sole drinking buddy. Desperate for motivation to act.

So be it.

A sharp painful cramp stabbed you in the abdomen. You grimaced and held one hand over your stomach. Nausea burned in your empty stomach as you staggered for the restroom.

Dirty doors at the end of the hall, you burst through one without regard for the signs over the door. You ran past broken sinks, dark yellow urinals and went straight for the three boots at the end of the room. The first one locked. The second stuck in place. The third free.

You closed the door behind you and locked it as another sharp sting of pain shocked through your body. You sat down and closed your eyes as to fight the pain back. The noise erupted in your pocket in electronic insanity. A siren screeched through the air, the ground trembled and you saw only dark pain.

The pain subdued, the pressure in your eyes eased and with a grudge, you opened them in strained discomfort as you left the stall.

Your face pale as death as you looked around.

Complete darkness surrounded you. Hot, humid and thick as the fog outside. A small ray of light came from the booth next door. The locked one. You stepped out from your booth.

Squish, squish.

For every step you took, the noise followed, fleshy in your ears. You scowled and felt something soft flatten beneath your feet, like the time you stepped on a rotten flesh. The smell of body odour from below didn´t help.

You pressed your hand against it and felt something wet against your fingertips.

The door grinded slowly open. The light dazzled you and you covered your face with one arm until the stars vanished.

A doll sat on the lid. A child´s toy with a shiny porcelain face and pitch-black eyes stared inside your soul. Dressed in a purple dress, dark hair of cloth from its head and a subtle smile on its pale, cracked lips, it welcomed you with silence.

A small dynamo-flashlight rested in the doll´s arms. The kind with a crank for recharge. You hesitated as you picked it up.

You acquired flashlight.

With a source of light in the darkness, you turned around.

And fear filled your mind.

Red walls of rust and flesh surrounded you, infested the bathroom with its presence. The air putrid with the stench of iron and blood stung your nose to tears. A thin layer of blood and mucous, full with soft lumps, covered the floor. You sweated. The room resembled the restroom, but carried a pulse that flowed in dark roots over the walls.

You panicked. Grabbed your elbows to not touch anything. Each step you took squashed like in a sump. Your mind frantically tried to comprehend what you saw.

Madness hit you hard as the world had turned to a foul place and sealed you in a hot cell of flesh.

You screamed and headed out with the flashlight in a tight grip. You fled.

You stepped back inside the bar, the humid heat built up sweat on your clothes. The ray of your flashlight danced over the interior and logic trashed apart.

Different.

The furniture stood in place. Tables and couches at the walls, stools by the counter, a shelf for bottles of various booze, empty. A large lump of dark flesh rested on the far end of the counter, concealed in darkness with the rest of the tumorous lumps of flesh around you. Everything covered by flesh over rusty iron. You tried to regain composure but your heart betrayed you with its frantic rhythm.

Parts of you wondered if all stress finally claimed your sanity and sent you to this nightmare. You tried to hold on regardless to not curl up on the floor in a ball.

You shook with your head in denial as your sole source of light flickered across greasy glass and stopped at the windows. Once covered in old newspaper articles, now grimed up with bandages.

A tunnel in the left window.

A tunnel of darkness that stretched endlessly in. No streets on the other side, despite your logic´s claim of absurd impossibilities.

You didn´t dare approach it. Instead you moved around to the front door. Your eyes averted away from the ground and only glanced for short periods of time at it.

With hesitation, you grabbed the door handle.

It rattled and refused to budge. Jammed and broken.

Locked in without a choice.

The static bombarded from your pocket, you glanced down with wide-open stare. A familiar signal, the one from the alley.

Behind you, something grunted and you turned around slowly.

The large hump at the end of the bar dragged itself to the side. A grunt and it slumped down on the floor with a heavy, soft, splash. You stepped away from the door and aimed your flashlight down to the red, slimy floor.

Something behind the counter shoved itself through the muck and filth and within your sight.

Your eyes fell down at it.

Your eyes opened wide. You covered your mouth in disgust. All appetite gone.

The beast turned its head up from its degenerated meal. Drool oozed down from the corners of its mouth. You backed away. Your cellphone shrieked.

The thing squealed loudly and pushed its body forward. Shoved grime, blood and filth out of its way as its tongue licked outside its mouth. It made its way towards you.

Your fear numbed any panic over your situation. With the other beast in fresh memory, you realize the options.

Flee or die.

You desperately grabbed the bottle of brandy in your pocket.

Throw brandy? Yes or no?

One look at the obese creature made the choice for you.

Yes.

With a shift throw, you aimed for its head. Glass shattered, warm brandy splashed over its face and it stopped. No visible damage but the "thing", immediately engulfed itself in the liquor. Licked itself and the floor around clean as it grunted, growled and squealed in bottomless hunger.

Your flashlight flickered.

You desperately searched for a way out, searched your mind while the distraction lasted.

No means to defend yourself. Front door locked. Bathroom a deathtrap. Once the light died, you would share its fate, crushed under the bulk of the "thing", suffocated on its stench and eaten alive until nothing remained.

The idea sent terror down your spine.

Your eyes stopped on the large hole in the window. The fleshy tunnel to the unknown. You walked to the hole, gazed down in the eternal darkness within it. Big enough for you.

The squeals continued behind you and the brandy lost its effect. The"thing"pushed across the floor. Hungry for your flesh.

Yet you hesitate.

Crawl into the hole?

Yes or no?

Choose.

Now.

Author´s Note: please review with feedback on the chapter as it determines the rate this story updates.

thanks for now and hopefully next update won´t take so long next time.

:)