A piece I did on a whim. Tell me what you think.
Building.
A building just like any other. Nothing engaging enough about it that the hundreds of people that passed it every day would give more than a passing glance. I too had been a part of this paltry repetition, the blissful normality until one day I stopped.
There was no reason for me to stop, I just did. It was the kind of thing that both happened for every reason in the world and for no reason at all. As I gazed upon this building that I saw almost every day, I suddenly realized how strange the building was. What had once been nothing more than something that obstructed vision suddenly consumed my thoughts.
There was nothing alarming about this building. It was a large, brick building. Perhaps the size of a soccer pitch corner to corner, with cutaways on the back. Windows were dotted here and there, a stoop presenting itself on the front.
Nothing wrong at a glance.
However, as I stood there, I noticed so many things wrong. Ivy ensnarled the corners of the building, even breaking the mortar in some places. The plants grew over and through the almost completely isolated parking lot in the front of the building. If there was a path or street to the parking lot, it was gone now.
Though I had to be somewhere, the engagement fell to the back of my consciousness as I circled the building. More problems presented themselves.
The windows were all dark and closed, but the front door was open and several hallways appeared to be dimly lit. More Ivy. More overgrown plants. The building looked almost as if it had been grown rather than built.
I felt a chill run through my body. It was getting dark, clouds were rolling in. I buttoned my jacket and hastily left, keeping my eyes forward and down, not wanting to look back.
The next day I woke a light drizzle and dreary gray skies. I went through my morning routines, showering, eating, getting dressed, in an almost trance like state. It’s not that I was thinking expressly about the building, it’s just that I couldn’t focus.
I continued through the day like this, however unlike the morning, my thoughts turned and worked exclusively around this ominous building, this consuming force. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I drifted in my classes, my thoughts elsewhere.
After school let out, I walked to the library. I had no idea what the building was or had been used for. I wanted to find out.
As I mindlessly skimmed the shelves, looking for anything that might help me, I almost thought it was silly what I was doing. This building had nothing that should entrance me like it is. I’ve always thought the supernatural to be a fallacy, but this was challenging that belief. On the other hand, it could be playing to human’s fear of the unknown and the desire to understand it.
I snapped out of thought as I found a book that might help. A book of major and historic buildings in the area. This might help.
I took the book off the shelf and walked to a table, where I laid the book to rest. I took some note paper out of my backpack and began to look for the building in the decrepit book. After several minutes of only semi-interested reading, I came across a listing. Short, but it was what I was looking for. Beyond a doubt.
A black and white photo that looked to be taken in the early sixties showed the building. However, there were no weeds. No ivy. There were people standing around dressed in lab coats. Holding clipboards. Pouring over papers. A living, breathing building, so to speak. I read the short article.
The Friedriech D. Gafford Center for Military Research was opened on September 12th, 1958. The center plans to make headway on biochemical enhancements for U.S. soldiers, among other things through the end of this century and possibly into the next. The Building supervisor Tom Murray says that the rese…” The article from this point on had either been erased, or smudged out over time. Either way it was an unintelligible blur.
I leaned back in my chair. I now knew what the building was for, but I felt no contentment. There was no closure in this article, just new, more complicated questions. It answered a good bit about what the building had been used for at one point, but I found the “among other things” part troubling. Coupled with the lack of a large portion of the article, it was more troubling than it was settling.
I sat there for several minutes, shifting my gaze slowly back and forth between the open book and my outstretched hand grasping my pencil, hovering a few inches off the slate clean paper. I set my pencil down, folded my arms and closed my eyes; thinking. It almost seemed like I knew less about this building than I had before. I wanted to know more, I needed to know more. It wasn’t one of those things I would forget about. It had grown from a curiosity to an obsession.
Apparently, I had been in deeper thought than I realized, for I was stirred by the sound of a vacuum run by a night janitor.. I opened my eyes. It was dark outside, the last of the evening rays barely visible in the deep purple sky. The library was darkened. I gathered my belongings, and exited the library.
It was dark on the street. There were but a few people seemingly wandering around, as if they had nowhere to be. I returned home, walking slowly. My thoughts turned to the first visit. I went over the details in my head. The plants, growing around and into the building. The windows, dark. Hallways ending in closed doors, hallways that were lit. The front doors. Those two open front doors, seemingly inviting me in. Dim, misleading fluorescent lights against the warmth and security of the sunshine. I had to return.
I drifted through the next day. The drone of my professors washed out by thoughts of returning to this haunting obsession. I could see myself go in. I could see myself walking around, but the only problem was I couldn’t picture what I was looking for. I couldn’t figure out what I would gain from going into the building; A thought that both terrified me and mystified me into the whole thing even more. I was being sucked in.
The leaves on the ground crunched beneath my feet. I approached the building, and in a way, the building approached me. I could almost feel it staring me down. Challenging me. Inviting me to try and crack it. I had accepted the challenge. I needed to know more.
I took one lap around the building, noting everything I could in a small book I brought with me. Approximate size, major structural elements, doors, windows, everything I felt was of significance I wrote down.
I came back around in front of the building, looking into the doors. I almost felt as if it was looking back at me. For whatever reason, I opened my hand. The notebook fell into a puddle. There was no reason why I did it, it just happened. No control, and in a second my painstakingly recorded notes were ruined as I saw the ink bleed through. I rose, and looked at the building one final time. I shook my head, turned and walked away.
I slept restlessly, eventually waking the middle of the night. Not knowing what to do with myself, I left my bed and got dressed. I sat idly, waiting for something to happen, although I knew nothing would. I decided to leave my house and drive around, hopefully clearing my thoughts so I could get a little sleep.
On a whim, I decided to drive by the building. As I approached it, I saw the dim lights amplified by the darkness around it to a point where it almost looked occupied. I parked my car and exited, walking towards the building.
I yelled at it, for no particular reason. Rage. This thing had consumed my thoughts, I hated this building. It devoured my life, and wouldn’t let me know why. I walked towards the building. My car door was open, engine still running. I didn’t care. I had to know why.
The way I had pictured it before, entering the building would have been a huge event. That there would be significance to it. There wasn’t. I walked in as I would any other building. The only thing any different at all was the second he stepped into the building, there was a piercing feeling of emptiness. I felt completely alone inside the building, and knew that I would never leave this place. I stopped, and turned, but knew that I couldn’t walk back through those doors.
Calmer now, I walked around. The dim lights flickered. They cast strange shadows. In lit periods, I saw, felt, almost heard the terror of this building. “biochemical enhancements for U.S. soldiers” , I thought back to the article. Looking through the broken windows, I saw the horrors in near flashbacks. Chairs with restraints turned to a restrained almost human. Otherworldly chemicals pumping through their veins, changing who they were. Changing everything.
Blood, vomit, urine. The smells were overpowering. More than the sights, more than the penetrating feeling of terror, the smells connected everything. Connected the sights to sounds, the feelings to emotions. I was saddened, more than anything. I kept walking.
I reached the end of the hallway and was confronted with a door, which I opened. A brief flicker showed a staircase. I walked in and closed the door, it was pitch black.
It never occurred to me to open the door I had just come through. It would be so easy, so easy to just turn the knob and bolt. I’d be out the door and to my car in a minute. But I continued down. Though I couldn’t see anything, I just kept walking. I turned right at the bend and continued down to another door, which opened to yet another hallway.
The fluorescent lights flickered even more lazily, presenting the shortest glimpses of the hallway. One thing was very clear, though. At the end of the hall was a door left slightly ajar. From this door, shone the most piercing light I had ever seen. Strangely, though, the light did not cast out over the hall. It was contained in the door and shone no further.
I walked towards the door, looking only briefly on either side of me. The hall was lined with large metal doors, dead bolted and locked. I could only imagine what was kept behind these doors long ago.
As I neared the door, I heard the most terrifying of noises. A deep groaning sound to the right of me. The door nearest to me on the right exploded, the corpses of failed experiments blowing all over me, and a large portion of the ceiling dislodging on my leg. I was pinned.
What happened next I was both surprised and not at all when a man clothed in white opened the door at the end of the hallway. The light shone through this time. I squinted.
The immaculately clothed man walked forward and kneeled down in front of me. He spoke.
“I bet you’re wondering why you’re here.”
I said nothing, but my look must have said something because he spoke again in a very calming tone.
“Two days ago. You saw this building with new eyes, but you had no reason why. The reason this happened is because you died.”
I tried to speak, but the man made a gesture to silence me. Although the man was calm in demeanor, the thought didn’t cross my mind to speak over him.
“Your in a state of limbo, you might say. The last two days you have been walking on this earth between what you see and what you don’t. This is what comes in between.”
It all made sense now. The man stood.
“I’ll see you in a bit.” he turned and walked toward the light.
The weight was lifted, I followed.
Upstairs, the front doors closed. The sun rose.
