Chapter One
On a Monday, deep underground during the summer of 1996, the psychologist tapped his pencil on the edge of his desk looking at Steven.
Steven had passed all the psychological tests; he passed the stress tests. He had signed over a thousand Non-Disclosure Agreements. Finally, he stamped down on Steven’s employment form in big red letters {APPROVED}.
Steven had no idea what the psychologist’s name was, he hadn’t learned anyone’s name since Async hired him. Wait, he did know one person’s name, Showalter, but he’s not allowed to use it. Instead, he’s been told to say Showalter’s number, 668. The number assigned to Steven was 999. He wanted to ask when he would get his first paycheck, he needed the money, but he didn’t.
The psychologist pressed a button, a man soon appeared, experienced in the job Steven was being assigned to, janitorial. But before Steven was dismissed, he was asked to recite the address to his ‘Assigned Buddy.’ He’d spent a week memorizing it, “234 Handcock Ln. Kansas City 66105.” He got the address correct and was dismissed to the care of the janitor.
The janitor who took Steven with him was dressed in a one-piece, dark blue jumpsuit; the kind Steven used to wear in the Navy. The janitor didn’t say anything, just pushed his janitor’s cart with its glass cleaners and stain removers and Steven followed. They were only six floors underground, but the hallway seemed to go on forever.
The hallway was the same as all the other hallways Steven had seen thus far. All long, all white tiled and white painted walls and windowless doors, it was boring. Every door in the place needed a scan card for entry. After a long walk the janitor stopped in front of a door that didn’t look any different than the others and took out his card.
After all the stiff and charmless people Steven had been exposed to over the last week, he was happy to see his former Navy shipmate, Showalter. Steven took a step inside the door as the janitor closed it and departed.
Showalter looked up and said, “Hey Buddy, I’m glad to see you.” Showalter and another guy were currently putting on yellow rubber pants. Both had already taped up their boots, Showalter said, “I didn’t think you were going to show. C’mon, let’s get you started.”
Showalter threw yellow rubber pants at Steven as he and the other guy continued to suit up. Showalter had bright red hair, the other guy had jet black hair, olive toned skin and his number was 009.
As they dressed, they kept telling Steven he would get better at putting his suit on. Theirs were worn a bit from use, but Steven’s was brand new and bright yellow. His number, 999, was printed on the breast of his suit and on his back. Once they got dressed, they each had to test their suits and breathing devices.
Everything worked. All three fully suited, pressed a button that went from red to green, then sat and waited. There was also a green light above their door.
Their wait was fifteen minutes, they made small talk, Showalter said Steven would get paid in a couple weeks. Not soon enough. The door opened and the three of them stood. Outside the door was a man on a motorized golf cart, the man wore an Army uniform, he had a handgun on his belt. He didn’t say anything, he just waited for the three yellow suited guys to get on the back of his cart. Once seated, they shot off down the hall.
Showalter guided Steven’s hands and indicated he should hold on tight, Steven did. The motorized golf cart sped down hallways, around curves, down hills. There were six different elevator rides, all of them traveling great distances underground. Steven didn’t know anything this big existed.
They stopped in front of a room that said, SUPPLIES. The Army guy grabbed a clipboard and said, “Number 668, you get the flame thrower today.” Showalter stood up and had a big smile on his face, he ran to the closet and suited up. The Army guy continued, “009 and 999, you get pickaxes and more oxygen. There will be a blast shield provided when you get there.”
The guy with black hair, 009 got the pickax. Steven had to grab oxygen cannisters. Showalter, (excuse me, number 668) said to Steven, “Sorry dude, put in some time here, you’ll get the cool stuff.” Steven said, “I know” and slumped in his seat holding oxygen.
Steven was getting a little claustrophobic being down under the ground so far, but to his delight, they found another elevator and went up a couple floors.
A man wearing glasses and a white lab coat stood waiting for them. The golf cart remained on the elevator. Once the yellow hazmat three were off the elevator, the Army guy watched as the elevator doors closed and he disappeared.
The lab coat guy knew Showalter, he said, “Good 668, I’m glad they sent you; we have a problem.” He spent the next ten minutes explaining the job to him. The lab coat guy gave each of the yellow hazmat men instructions, he showed them the yellow and black line on the floor. Steven looked at his map, there was an X at their destination. Like buried treasure, he thought.
The guy in the lab coat hit a button and the blaring of an alarm started. A door Steven hadn’t seen when they entered the room opened, he was momentarily blinded by the yellow light that shot out of the opening, like sunshine. They all shielded their eyes.
Steven would later compare it to a movie theatre with no seats. But instead of a movie screen, the giant metal door opened and the guy in the lab coat backed up.
There were taped areas on the floor. The man in the white lab coat wouldn’t get any closer, instead he pointed and ordered the hazmat team inside. Steven had served a great deal of his Navy time working underneath Showalter (668). He saw the yellow room, but seeing the lab coat’s reaction, and his unwillingness to get any closer, scared Steven. But his former shipmate’s lack of fear as he walked into the yellow space got his courage up, Steven followed; he was the last to enter, the black-haired dude was in the middle.
The second they were inside the yellow space, Showalter radioed, “You can talk freely here Steven, they can’t hear radio talk, only through phone lines or wires once you’re inside. You don’t have to press buttons to talk to us, just speak and the radio transmits. Shout if your radio dies, we can hear you without it, not great, just okay.”
Steven asked, “Inside where? What is this?”
The black-haired dude said, “Welcome to the Backrooms.”
As Steven looked around, he was unimpressed. The walls were yellow, the carpet sounded squishy. Showalter said, while adjusting his flame thrower, “This’ll be lighter when we come back.” He straightened up and got serious:
“Listen to me, both of you.” He said this to both, but was looking at Steven, “Do not lose sight of me or him. As gay as it sounds, if you need to hold hands, that’s fine. There are things in here that don’t make any sense, there are noises that get into your brain. You might hear talking or singing, ignore it. If you follow something, or go off the yellow and black line, me and him aren’t going to be able to help you. Async loses employees constantly, they are simply lost. Your body will never be found, no one will ever look for you. You get lost, you’re on your own, let’s go.”
They started walking. Steven had his cannisters, the black-haired dude had his pickax and Showalter had his flamethrower. Following the yellow and black line, Steven kept his eyes on the black-haired dude’s yellow back. Steven saw on his back the pouch where he was to put oxygen cannisters when the air was low.
All the rooms looked the same, all the walls were yellow. There were some lights that flickered on and off when they passed, but Steven didn’t understand what all these rooms were for, Why build this? He thought. He asked Showalter aloud, “Why can’t we breathe the air in here?” Showalter replied without looking at him, “Look down at your feet. That’s why.”
Steven looked at his yellow rubber-booted feet and saw little black spots around the edges of his boots. He bent a little to look and saw what looked like mold, black mold. In the time it took for him to look, his two co-workers were twenty feet ahead of him, he ran to catch up.
As he did, he heard the black-haired dude ask, “Is this map correct? We must walk ten miles to get there?” Showalter answered, “Yep, hour and a half there, hour and a half back. And it looks like we get to walk half of that through the cathedral.”
The black-haired dude said, “No.”
Showalter had a smile in his voice, “We all have to do it once.”
Steven asked, “What is the cathedral.”
Showalter replied, “You get to get this out of the way on your first day Buddy.”
Steven pressed again, “Yes, but what is it?”
The black-haired dude said, “You remember when you were little, and your dad or your grandpa said they had to walk to school, and it was up hill both ways?” He didn’t wait for Steven to reply, “Well, this is the opposite of that.”
There was a well-lit room they walked into; it was huge. All the lights were on. The walls were all yellow, the carpet brown and squishy. There were pillars in the middle of the room, they formed a circle; Showalter and the other guy paid the pillars no mind.
But, neither of them noticed, or they pretended like they didn’t notice, the black and yellow line led into a wall. They both kept walking until they went through it, like the wall wasn’t there.
Steven stopped before he hit the wall, there was a wall there, but the line just kept going. While standing there, a yellow hand shot out, grabbed him, and pulled him forward. Once there, Showalter raised his voice for the first time, “Steven, keep up.”
They continued; the rooms looked the same as before.
About four miles into the Backrooms, they found a dark staircase. The yellow and black line led them there. Showalter had stopped and lifted his flame thrower pack from his back, the black-haired dude was looking at a gauge there. Showalter then turned and checked him out, then he looked at Steven’s gauge on his back. He said, “Alright, we’ll be about halfway through when we need to change our cannister’s. I’ll be using a small flashlight only to follow the line on the floor. You can use lights, but don’t.” He pointed at the stairs, there was worry in his voice.
He looked at Steven and said while pointing at the black and yellow strip on the floor, “There’s an electrical current running through that strip. If we stay on it or close to it, the rooms around us don’t change and trap us. There’re also things crawling around in here, the power running through the black and yellow strip keeps them away. I don’t know why.”
He finished talking, adjusted the flame thrower on his back and started down the stairs. Showalter went first, the black-haired dude turned and said, “Grab the handle of my pickax, I’ll hold on to 668. Don’t let go, don’t walk with your eyes open if you can.” They started down together.
At first Steven was too confused to be scared. While walking down the dark stairs, he wondered why Showalter had referred to it as the ‘Cathedral’. Steven didn’t see any resemblance to any church he had ever seen. Until after a thousand steps down, they were there, it was pitch black, the steps ended, and the cathedral began.
The hall became so small you couldn’t take a step without your shoulders brushing against the wall on either side. But that wasn’t the problem, there were doors on both sides, they were all open. The tops of the open doors were curved, and as far up as Steven could see, there were no doors you could close, just the doorways. He looked up and saw the doorways continued up the walls, he couldn’t see where they ended, they just kept going. He turned off his light.
Steven kept the end of the black-haired dude’s pickax in his left hand, in his right he had the oxygen cannisters, his arm was getting tired.
There was a little red light flashing on the back of the black-haired dude’s suit. Then Showalter’s suit started flashing. Showalter turned and said in a whisper, “Let’s get this over with, do not lose physical contact with me or him.” He was speaking to Steven.
Showalter lifted his flamethrower pack up and the black-haired dude switched out his cannisters. Then Showalter did the other two. Steven wanted to throw the used cannisters into the open doors, but Showalter said no, “Just leave them in a pile here, that scientist wants to see if they’re still here when we pass back through.”
Leaving the used cannisters, they continued. For some reason, Steven kept thinking he was seeing stars to his left and his right. But every time he would look, all he saw was darkened doorways.
After a while, Steven could no longer help himself, while walking, he turned on his flashlight and looked. There was a hairless, naked mannequin looking at Showalter’s back. It had a smile painted on its face. When Steven’s flashlight went to Showalter, who hadn’t seen it, then back to the mannequin, it had turned to face him, it was no longer smiling and was making eye contact. Steven got so close to the black-haired dude he couldn’t see anything but his yellow back in the dark. He lost the urge to look again.
He felt strange having his back exposed, but he tried not to think about it. He also felt stupid for not listening. Steven kept hearing sounds from behind but did his best to ignore them. It seemed the noise got louder when it knew you heard.
They finally emerged from the dark into a yellow hallway when the cathedral ended, all three of them breathed easier. The black-haired dude even tried taking off his yellow helmet, but Showalter stopped him and said, “We’re not out yet.” Black hair realized what he had almost done and thanked him.
The black and yellow line continued, there’s wasn’t much to see after they emerged from the cathedral, except for yellow. And the carpet was dry sometimes, not a lot, but sometimes.
Another half-mile of endless rooms. Once again, they passed flickering lights, but didn’t hear anything and that was a relief. Steven was thinking about how he could find a job at McDonald’s, Flipping burgers sounds good about now, he thought. As he was thinking this, the black-haired dude said loudly, “Party hat.” Steven looked up and was directed to look in a room where a party hat was spinning in a circle on the floor.
Showalter said with his back to the other two, “Steven, this will get weird, but you can’t get scared, okay?”
Steven said warily, “Okay, you want to tell me what you’re talking about?”
Showalter replied, “I could but that won’t be necessary.” He stopped talking and kept walking. Steven wanted to know more but he didn’t need to ask. Their hallway still had their black and yellow line on the floor. But ahead, where it looked like the hallway ended, written in big black letters, HELLO STEVEN.
It looked like someone had written it with a giant black Sharpie. Where it looked like their hallway ended, turned sharply to the left. At the end of that hallway was written,
YOU WILL DO IT STEVEN. The black-haired dude asked, “When did they map this section, 668?” Showalter thought for a moment, then answered, “About a year ago. The scientist said this area was left alone, but it had gotten active a few weeks ago, then the writing’s showed up.”
Showalter had been thinking about it since they left, and he came up with a conclusion. No one knows if it helped things or not. He ordered the other two, “No one use names anymore, we stick with numbers. 668, 009 and 999, got it?” The other two said yes.
They passed another room with a table, there were more party hats strewn about, some on the floor and scattered confetti. The table didn’t have any chairs. A short while after that, without saying anything, Showalter, (excuse me, 668), pointed up at the ceiling and both 009 and 999 looked up to see a small black camera pointing towards their destination, further on down the hall. Showalter stood facing the camera for a moment, he saw the little red light turn off, then on. This told him the lab coat guy was watching.
There was another writing on the wall, STEVEN’S HERE, followed by a red handprint followed by a blood-red smear that led to the floor. Showalter said, “This was here long before you applied for the job.” Both 009 and 999 knew who he was talking to, neither replied.
The grand hall where the birthday party was, was huge. It went on so far neither of them could see the walls on the other side. There were tables set up that went on infinitely. There were big plates with pictures of clowns on them, every table had them. There were purple napkins, yellow birthday hats on the chairs. Some plates had individual cakes on them, purple and red cakes with giant, fat, red cherries on the tops. It looked to Steven like it was generic, or synthetic. Those weren’t the words he wanted to use, ‘Antiseptic,’ that was the word he wanted. But later when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember why.
Number 668 said, “C’mon guys, we’re not there yet.” And he started walking to the middle of the giant room while adjusting his flame thrower. They started off after him, the black and yellow line kept them on track. Table after table after table. It felt like they were walking forever. Some of the tables had more detail, but they were all the same. He was getting hungry and was curious how those cakes would taste, with their fat cherries, and their purple frosting. He kept wanting to touch them, to push his finger into the middle of the cake and let his finger explore.
Then he passed a table that had written down the middle do it steven stick your finger in, and with that, he no longer wanted to touch the cakes. A few of the plates had been knocked to the floor by whatever had written the words, the cakes were exploded, black mold was feasting on everything.
A mile into the infinite birthday party room, they found their target, the gift tables.
There were big presents, with yellow and purple wrapping paper. Giant purple bows on the tops and confetti strewn around the floor. 999, while adjusting the remaining cannisters, counted eight gift tables. 668 shouted, “Over here.”
Both 009 and 999 approached him. On one of the birthday tables was a small tripod with another camera pointing at one of the gift tables. 668 stood facing the camera for a moment before the little red light turned off, then on, the lab coat scientist was there. Turning to the gift table the camera was pointing at, saw that everything on that table was gold.
There were pirate hats, with little golden swords and eye patches that hung off the table. Even the table itself was gold. Well, most of the table was gold, the tops of the legs were. About halfway to the floor, the legs turned back into silver before they reached the brown carpeting.
668 said, “Get everything that can burn, including food onto that table.” The three of them started making a pile. 009 grabbed presents and threw them to the table. 668 kicked anything that didn’t stay on the gold table underneath it to help with the fire. The tables that weren’t gold were pulled away. Any birthday tables with cake on them were pushed away.
668 said, “We need to burn the gold till it’s nothing but a pile of golden goo. In one of these tanks on my back is hydrochloric and nitric acids.”
Clueless, both 009 and 999 stared at 668. He realized they were confused, 668 said, “The only thing that can destroy gold is a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids.” Then he added, “That or a nuclear reaction.”
He fired up his flame thrower and asked 009 to make sure the dial on his back was switched to NAPALM and not the acids. Once that was done, 668 unleashed the flames of hell on the golden gift table.
Steven, (sorry, 999) remembered his uncle telling him about flame throwers in Vietnam, “I saw a couple guys in the jungle get napalm on them, that fire sticks to you like jelly.” The three of them stood and watched the fire dance. Even though they were wearing protective suits, they still had to back up, the heat was intense.
At some point there must have been something inside one of the gifts that heated up, some compressed air or something, because there was an explosion, followed by the jingling of coins. 999 and 009 had been standing close to each other, shoulder to shoulder watching the fire when it happened. Some of the coins landed at their feet, they both looked down.
668’s eyes were bright orange, Steven’s uncle had also said, “Sometimes guys with flamethrowers lose their minds looking at that fire.” So, 668 didn’t see the coins when they rolled around on the ground by the black-haired dude and Steven. There weren’t a lot, less than ten.
The coins weren’t like anything 999 had ever seen. He picked one up, it was copper but didn’t have any markings on it. He had big fat gloves on his hands, but he was fairly sure they were penny size. All it needs is a picture of President Lincoln and a date and it would make a fine penny. Steven thought.
The black-haired dude stood with his pickax and watched the fire. Steven backed up a few steps and picked up another coin. He noticed half of the coin was gold. It sparkled and was beautiful. Somehow, the gold had been mixed with the copper part of the faceless penny.
The ceiling of the room they were in must’ve been a hundred feet high. With no posts in the middle of the room they wondered how a ceiling like that could hold itself up. The smoke rolled up and started filling the large room. What they didn’t know was that some of that smoke was drifting into the vents. From a few rooms over, something was alerted.
The gift table itself was a mile from their entrance. The napalm had melted the table and burned all the wrapped gifts piled there. There was nothing left but a puddle of melted gold and ash. 668 turned his back to 009 and said, “Acid please.” The switch was clicked, what looked like water dissolved the melted gold puddle on the floor. 668 said, “Any gold we see must be destroyed. They said it was some kiddie game, like Fireball Island or something like that. Some kids game that had a little treasure chest in it, it looked like gold.”
The black-haired dude (sorry 009) said, “What about it? How is the gold a problem?”
668 was still spraying acid on the golden puddle, it sizzled and bubbled. 668 replied, “Because it sprea…”
He was stopped from speaking. Far, far away from them, from the opposite side of the room from where they entered, it came screaming. Steven thought it sounded like the dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park movie, the Tyrannosaurus when it roared.
What looked like a giant black spider, raced towards them. The three of them started running towards their entrance. What was left of the golden puddle still bubbled. 668 noticed he could run a lot easier when his flamethrower wasn’t full. 009 was grateful he still had his pickax. 999 was angry he only had oxygen cannisters, but to his credit he didn’t drop them.
The spider threw tables to the side like they were toys. Cakes exploded when they hit the ground or splattered against the wall.
668 saw right away that the three of them wouldn’t make it to the end of the room before the spider reached them. He had only turned to see the spider’s progress once, and it was closing in. He was breathing hard and wanted a break.
668 was taller than the other two, he had the lead. As the spider closed the distance, 668 pulled out a Pietro Beretta 9mm, and fired eight shots at it. He made every shot count. The spider tried to continue but fell dead at their feet.
Less than a second had passed before the black-haired dude said, “YOU got a gun? Why didn’t I get a gun?” As he said this, a blue figure emerged from across the room, from the same direction the spider had. It was saying something but sounded strange. 999 kept thinking about the used car lot when he was little, that had been by his parents’ house when he saw it. Why would I think about that he thought.
668 shouted, “009, chop off a big piece of that spider, we’re taking it with us. Let’s go.” He then clapped his hands together to hurry them along. Then he pointed at 999 and said, “Lets switch our cannisters now, we’ll be running the whole way back.” Then he turned and lifted his flamethrower. As 009 got his piece of spider leg, the other two switched out cannisters, they were ready for black hair when he was done. This time, instead of cannisters, 999 got to carry the pickax.
The blue figure wasn’t as fast as the spider, but it did see them. The closer it got, 999 kept thinking about the used car lot from his parents’ house when he was a kid. There was an inflatable dummy that would dance in front. The closer the thing got to them, the more it looked like that thing, that inflatable dummy. It also sounded like it was broadcasting something, it spoke constantly and said, “Idterfidable, tronadalitsity, kerp derrun, floopea.” Its big blowup smile looked directly at them. The big smile was always smiling.
009 got his fresh cannister and the three of them ran. On 009, it looked like he had been dipped in tar, the blood from the spider’s leg covered him from head to toe and was black, not red.
They made it to the entrance and following the black and yellow line, disappeared into the endless empty rooms. The blue blow-up-man couldn’t keep up with them, but he was trying.
The three of them were in their 20’s, they were exhausted but had the strength to keep running. When they got to the entrance to the cathedral, soldiers were waiting there with guns pointed. The soldiers had gas masks on, but they weren’t in full yellow gear. They saw the flamethrower and said, “668, are you alright?”
He looked himself over and said, “I think so.”
There were ten soldiers total, with more on the way. Two of them had the same type of flamethrower on their backs. Even with the masks, the three yellows could see the smiles on the soldiers’ faces. 668 asked, “What’s going on?”
One of the soldiers said, “You’re the first to kill an entity.” Then a soldier with a plastic tube of some sort, helped 009 get his piece of the spider’s leg into a thick plastic bag. He turned and ran back through the cathedral alone carrying the leg in the bag. The soldiers all patted the three of them on the backs, except for 009 because he was covered in black spider blood, they just looked at him and said, “Great job.” The three of them were ordered back to their starting point. As they started walking through the cathedral, they heard from afar, the sound of the blue blow-up-man again, only this time they barely heard it, “Idterfidable, tronadalitsity, kerp derrun, floopea.” They heard gunshots, then glorious celebration. They assumed blue blow up man was dead.
Once back, the scientist was there, but only to congratulate Showalter. Once done, he quickly left to examine the spider’s leg. The three of them weren’t there to see it, but soon the blue blow-up-man would be brought out on a stretcher. Dead or not, the soldiers were terrified.
The Army guy on the motorized golf cart was there. He brought them back to their cleanup room. The three of them disrobed and showered and didn’t speak. 668 didn’t have his clothes on for less than a minute before a man with a perfect military haircut showed up with a bottle of Rum, it was in a blue bottle and looked expensive. He took 668 with him and said as they left, “Congratulations, you’re being promoted to security.” Steven would never see Showalter again.
As Steven and the black-haired dude sat in their changing room and waited to be let off for the night, neither spoke. Eventually the light above the door changed to green and the black-haired dude showed him how to exit. They went to a nearby elevator, which then turned green and exited them street side.
Steven caught the bus, the black-haired dude jumped in his car and sped off.
As Steven sat down next to an old lady dressed in a baby blue coat on his right and a black dude on his left, he decided he needed a drink. He then started to think his foot felt funny. He was glad no one had searched him when he left Async, his coin with the gold on it sat safely in his shoe. He pulled up his pant leg and scratched his ankle. Looking at his hand, he wondered how he had gotten gold paint on the tips of his fingers.
The following day, fellow janitor Ray, was supposed to have had the day off, but Async called when Steven, (sorry 999) hadn’t shown up for work. Ray got out of his car and adjusted his pants. His cell phone was huge, the bottom part needed a briefcase sized battery to work, he was speaking to his mother, we can’t hear her replies. He was in relaxed clothes, gray sweatpants and hoodie.
“No, Ma, Async set this up to prevent getting the police involved.” He said as he crossed the street to Steven’s apartment.
“Because this way we keep our problems in house.” slight pause “This way, if my buddy is too drunk to make it into work, or gets in a fight or whatever, I can find out and explain it to Async.”
Another slight pause, “Yes, I get a spare key to his apartment, he gets a spare to mine. I talked to him, we agreed to never go to each other’s places unless ordered, it’s actually a pretty good system.”
Ray’s mother asked him another question as he got in the elevator and pressed the button to Steven’s floor, “I guess I trust him, why wouldn’t I? Ma, I might lose you in the elevator.”
As Ray stepped off the elevator, he was already calling his mother back. “I’m on his floor, it’s okay I just lost the connection. I am walking down the hall, I just need…” he looked at the floor leading to Steven’s apartment and was speechless.
When he stopped talking, she became worried. Ray’s mother screamed, “What’s the matter? Honey are you alright?”
“Ma, there’s these weird spots on the floor. Like someone with a loaded paint brush walked along dripping paint every so often. It’s gold drips of paint on the floor.”
Ray leaned out over the balcony and looked four floors down, thinking that if someone was that messy with gold paint, there would certainly be drips in the parking lot. But the cars below, and the sidewalk, and the kids playing didn’t show any paint, none he could see. Come to think of it he thought, was there any paint in the elevator? He couldn’t remember seeing any.
Avoiding the spots on the floor, he got to Steven’s apartment door and froze. Someone had painted the door handle and half of the door with that gold paint. Ray tried explaining it to his mother, but she didn’t believe him. Ray took out his key and pushed it into the handle, but the door wasn’t locked, it opened a crack. The hinges to the door were strained with the added weight, they screamed in protest when Ray used his foot to kick the door open all the way. Because half of the door was weighted down, the hinges gave out and it crashed to the floor. He asked softly after the door fell, “Steven, you home?”
Commentary for Ray’s mother continued, “Ma, whoever was screwing around with the gold paint went nuts in Steven’s apartment.” He took a step inside, there were bigger spots of gold all over the floor. There was a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka sitting on a table next to the couch, the bottle was gold, so was the table. He could see the Smirnoff indented words, now printed in gold. Using the top edge of his cell phone he tapped the bottle, it tipped over. When it crashed to the wood floor it was loud in the quiet room. The bottle must’ve been empty because no liquid spilled out, but because it was heavy gold it left a dent in the floor.
He saw the kitchen stove in the next room, and somehow avoiding all the gold spots, he stepped inside and gasped.
His mother asked, “What’s wrong?”
Ray replied, “Mom, someone put a gold statue of Steven in his kitchen.” As Ray took the scene in, it looked like Steven’s statue was in the process of amputating his foot, then again further up the leg. There were also blade swipes on his left arm. But all of that was gold, and so was the saw Steven was holding. His refrigerator was gold, there was a golden Chinese food menu stuck with a magnet. All around Steven the floor was gold, spread out from him like a gold puddle. The sink was filled with what looked like dirty golden dishes.
Ray asked, “Why would he make a statue of this? Of him sawing on himself?” As he stood there, he kept thinking he should call Async. Confused, he said loudly, “Steven, quit screwing around are you home?”
He backed out of the kitchen and found Steven’s bedroom, careful to avoid the gold spots on the floor. Steven’s bedroom was the first thing he saw that made sense, messy bed, scattered dirty clothes. When he turned from the bedroom, he looked at the Smirnoff Vodka bottle on the floor, he saw gold liquid had spilled out and was now pooling on the floor.
He wanted to look in the kitchen again but looked back at the vodka bottle on the floor. There was no liquid in that bottle, he thought. That bottle was empty. He set the phone down and lay on the floor and took a close look at where the bottle landed. He wanted to see the liquid itself that was pooling. But the closer he got, the more he was convinced there was no liquid to see. He blinked and took a closer look, sure enough, the floor itself was gold.
He stood, then bent to grab his cell phone and the heavy battery. But when he grabbed his phone, he could see on the earpiece from where he had touched the bottle, gold had spread, and was still spreading, soon his entire phone would be gold.
His hands started to shake, he said without touching the cellphone on the floor, “Ma, if you can hear me go to Aunt Eileen’s place, go further than that if you can. Go as far north, away from Kansas as you can, go now.” His mother tried to ask, “What’s the matter Honey.” But her words were cut out when the gold seeped in far enough and altered the tiny speaker, rendering it useless. He only heard, “What’s the matt…”
Ray ran out of the apartment and found the nearest payphone across the street, there was a special line to call, for Async employees only. Ray didn’t know it at the time, but on the earpiece of his cell phone, where he had poked the Smirnoff bottle, some of his hair had touched the gold, he will notice as soon as he hangs up the payphone.
