I couldn’t believe how dark it was in the warehouse that night. I almost ventured to ask Ari if Hell was dark like this, but I wanted no uninvited visitors. Not that night.

The door was a sad excuse for wood, for it was clearly styrofoam showered in sawdust. I wondered who had left the building in such a sorry state. I wondered if they had felt any obligation to revisit it as I was now. But the wall’s echoes were a testament to the warehouse’s draconian loneliness. They were hardly echoes though, more like cries. Like Ari’s cries.

For some unknown reason, I felt encouraged to kick off my shoes. And so I did. The floor felt as though the world’s largest bottle of Coke had been spilled on it the day before. I followed the echoes until they were overcome by nature’s symphony of owls, bats, and thunder -the classic creepy trio. After that I followed the shadows, which poured out of the windows so profusely I was tempted to clean them up. Ari would have. Undoubtedly she would have.



A distant church bell rang out twelve times and then all was chaos. A colony of bats winged through a broken window; the sky began to cry over some great tragedy and produced a cataract of tears as the wind tried to dry them up by gusting through the entire city. But amidst all the cacophony I heard a sound, distinct from all the rest for it was not natural but synthetic. I careened toward it and caught a door shutting, willfully and sheepishly evading me. I scrambled for the door nob and wrapped my hand around it. It was warm, hot even in the frigid warehouse. I heaved open the door just in time to see another close behind it. It became a sort of game: follow the shutting doors. Like follow the leader, Ari’s game of choice in the labyrinthian warehouse. And as usual, I was follower.


The warehouse was deep and wide, but not this deep, not this wide. I had failed to realize that I was descending into the basement while flying through doors, pursuing a nebulous shadow into the bowels of this semi-familiar building. But I could not stop. My viscid feet kept dragging me onward, no matter how my heart pounded or breath staggered.


When the shadow faced me I stumbled backward, but the wall caught me. I tried to will the man to open the final door, but he was a statue staring back at me, unwilling to move a muscle. The wall threw me at him suddenly, and when he leapt out of the way I fell through the doorway.


I lay on the floor for a moment, amazed by how clean the carpet felt, how fresh it smelled. Finally I rolled over and squinted at the tinted lights that surrounded this man like a demon’s halo. I tried abortively to bring him into focus. I failed, too to stand on my own. He seized both of my hands and hauled me to my feet.

“Thank you,” I managed to sputter. I curled my toes under and teetered on my heels.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could just as easily ask you the same thing. This place was abandoned thirty years ago. What are you doing hanging out in the basement?” Suddenly a bolt of fear shot threw me, and words passed with it. Accusations really, of sick crimes yet to be proven true. I teetered faster, fighting the urge to run.

“This place was abandoned thirty years ago.”

“Yeah I just said that,” I mumbled anxiously.

“I wasn’t finished. It was abandoned and mostly everyone left but me.”

“Mostly?” I asked, whipping my head over my shoulder with such force I feared it might snap off.

“My friends remained.”

He spoke but I did not listen. I watched, I stared, I gawked at the dismembered mannequins arranged on the floor.

“They knew I couldn’t stay here all alone. But I also couldn’t leave. They’re so loyal, and so generous. They never ask me to share anything. They never try to leave.”

“Oh my-” I whispered, my eyes meandering around the room.

“Who invited you? Who invited you?”

“Oh-um, no one. I just came here to...” I murmured something indecipherable, but Ari somehow slipped out.

“Ari. I’ve heard that name before. Ari and Tessa.”

“That’s my name. How do you know my name?” I cried.

“Shh, Cathy is resting. She lost her arm and leg recently. She’s healing. She needs to-”

“Shut up! Did you watch us? We were just kids when we played here. You pervert!”

“I didn’t watch. I never watch. Just listen.”

“Listen?”

He nodded, and I saw in his eyes that he knew. I saw through tears his sober expression.

“So you heard? You heard that day what happened to- what Ari did?”

He nodded again, so slowly I could hardly discern any movement.

“I didn’t know she was gonna bring it,” I sobbed, “if I had known I would’ve stopped her. But how could I have known? I didn’t even know she was sick like that. I was just a kid. We both were... But it was so loud. Just bang. I shut my eyes. I didn’t even see her take her last breath. I was scared. I-”

“Shh,” he said. He stepped forward and raised his arms from his side. My breath left me and I wanted to flee again, but he walked past me and toward one of his dolls. He put his hands on “Cathy’s” shoulders. “Shh,” he repeated gravely, “Cathy is resting.”



Then I left. And I felt the same guilt I felt the day Ari killed herself, and the same remorse the former warehouse workers must live with every day. Because I abandoned the old man. And I never looked back.