The Hungry Tower

“That’s the thing about this city…” Detective Inspector Steph remarked, pulling her gloves off as she stepped away from the body. “It just gets more brutal by the day.” Detective Inspector Hanlon, trying not to look at the body for too long grimaced at what was left of the man on the floor. The man was dressed in a shirt and trousers, with curly black hair and a stump surrounded by crusted blood, where his right arm used to be. “What do you think did this?” He asked through gritted teeth, his gut churning. Steph shrugged as she threw her gloves into a biowaste bin on the ground nearby, allowing the coronary team to carry on photographing. Their camera flashes reflected off the fire door that the body lay next to, filling the narrow alley with light. She tightened her dark ponytail and looked back. “The arm was completely severed, but not by anything particularly sharp. It was almost torn off, hence the blood. Cause of death is most likely the blood-loss, so Sam said.” She jerked her thumb at one of the coronary team in a white overall and mask, who looked up at mention of his name and nodded. “Not a lot of blood on the ground though.” He remarked. Steph nodded.

“That’s what I said.”

Hanlon looked up at the high-rise building they stood at the foot of and squinted in the early morning light that slanted down off its flat sides and fish scale windows. “Do you think it happened here.” Steph looked around and shook her head. “No way.” She made a slashing motion with both her hands, looking at the body and they at the tight space they were in. “If it were done here, there would be a lot more arterial spray up the walls, and if you look its clean.”

“I’ve seen enough thanks.” Said Hanlon, pulling out his E-cigarette. Steph grinned.

“How long is that going to last?”

“Shut-up. It’s for real this time.” He took a long drag and exhaled a dense white cloud that was blasted away in a sharp breath of wind.

Looking away, he frowned and pointed at the floor. “If it wasn’t done here, then surely there should be some drag marks, or bloodstains down the alley. There’s no way a vehicle could fit down here.” They both walked up the narrow space and to the mouth of the path, scanning it the whole way. “So how does a body, die in such a brutal way, but leave no blood except directly underneath it?” Hanlon took another drag on his vape, nearly throwing it to the ground to stub out. “He was next to a fire door?” Steph shook her head. “No blood on it.”

“Surely, it’s worth checking out? We’ll have to ask for witnesses from this place anyway.” He said, indicating the tall building next to them. She glowered at him. “Sometimes you make sense Lee, and it’s really annoying.”

Walking round the front of the building, the entrance way was decorated with a bizarre grey-black stone, shot through with veins of red, polished to shine like marble. The name of the building EVELYN SPIRE was scarred onto a plaque by the door and inlaid with cold silver. “Strange name,” Hanlon remarked as the doors slid open welcomingly. “What do you mean?” Steph asked, her permanent frown deepening.

“Evelyn Spire. A bit… I don’t know… Archaic? Wymsical? Just seems like a strange name, that’s all.” The two D.Is were welcomed into a warm lobby, with a red carpet leading to a desk on the far side and two babbling water troughs flanking them as they walked up to it. The man behind the desk was so large as to just fit in his seat, his hair parted neatly and spectacles on the end of his nose. He gave a small smile as Lee Hanlon and Steph approached, “Can I help?” He asked in a weak voice. Lee caught the whiff of old sweat as they approached.

Steph showed the badge on the lapel of her black coat and Hanlon did the same. The doorman licked his lips and pushed his glasses up to his eyes. “I’m Detective Inspector Stephanie Colt, this is D.I Lee Hanlon. We’re here due to the body that was found in the alley way next to this building.” The man, whose name on his tag read “Lucas Prederghast”, widened his eyes in shock. “A body? A dead person? Found? Shit… Who was it? Someone who works here?”

“We don’t have a name yet. We’re hoping you could help us actually.” Lucas was clearly jittery, and he had begun to stumble over his words. “You can ask me, certainly.” Lee layered his voice with calm and warmth. “Before we ask our questions, would you mind showing us the way to the fire-door that leads out onto that alley?” He indicated the direction. “Then if you could get some CCTV footage that might cover the alley, that’d be a great help.” Gulping and breathing out, Lucas nodded.

“Of course. Mr, err Sir.”

“Lee’s fine, mate.” Lee said politely with a smile. “Show us the way.”

They were led into a network of corridors, deeper in the bowels of the building. The fire escape was at the foot of a set of metal stairs in a corridor lined with more of the red veined black stone. “There’s something off…” Detective Hanlon murmured to his colleague as they followed the Lucas who walked briskly ahead of them. Steph frowned up at him, “I can’t tell exactly, but there’s something off about this building. It’s weird.” Steph shook her head disbelievingly.

“Let’s just see if there’s anything about this door. Look for details.”

The corridor leading up to the door was long and dark, and again lined with the peculiar stone floor wall and ceiling. They all walked silently down the corridor, lit by narrow strip-lights, till they came to the steel double doors. Lucas stepped aside as the two detectives came forward and scanned the door. The stared for a long moment before looking at each other. “Any chance of that CCTV, Lucas?” Lee asked quietly, turning to face the doorman. He almost jumped to attention at the mention of his name, nodding and strutting away, nervously, down the corridor. Watching till he was out of earshot, Steph snapped her head around to Lee, her eyes wide “Do you see this?” Lee nodded and turned back to the door. “Yeah.” He leaned in and stared closely at the door. “It’s completely clean. There’s nothing here.”

“Do you think it’s been wiped?” Steph asked, pulling out a fresh pair of gloves and handing a pair to him. Snapping them on they both inspected the door, the push bar handle, the frame, the floor even the small green light that illuminated the fire door’s location. “Not a mark. It’s like it’s been picked clean.”

“So maybe it was wiped clean?”

“But it’s not just the door.” Lee said, turning back and looking down on the polished stone that constituted the whole corridor. “This whole place. The whole way here. That’s what’s been bothering me, it’s just too clean.” Steph followed his eyes down the corridor.

“Well, whoever did this can’t have cleaned a whole building.”

“No…” Lee agreed, pulling his gloves off. “That’s…” He sighed shaking his head. “Maybe this is the wrong door?”

Steph rapped her knuckle on the metal loudly. “Sam!!! You out there!?” There was a noise from the other side, “Are we okay to open the door?” Another muffled response. Steph pushed the bar handle and the door swung open back into the alley, right next to where the body lay. The air rushed up behind them with a sound like a massive exhale, filling Lee’s nostrils with a rancid stink of bad breath. “Eurgh! What’s that smell!?” He exclaimed turning to see Steph, also had her face screwed up in disgust. “Is it coming from the body?” She shook her head and then suddenly looked down in horror.

The body was moving.

Not as if it were alive, but sliding, dragging as if something invisible was pulling it toward the open door. Revulsion and horrible instinct crawling up Lee’s legs and body made him flinch aside as it scraped toward him, only to find his feet were stuck. The floor beneath his feet, which had been dark stone was now soft and wet membranous tissue that sucked at his feet. “What the…!” He began as the body slid in through the door, and the floor began to undulate and ripple, pulling the body in deeper, rolling over and over, covering it with a clear sticky mucus as it moved toward the dark depths of the building. The fire door slammed shut with a metallic echoing bang, leaving them in almost darkness as the lights began to sink into the softening wall.

“Lee,” Steph said shakily, over the gurgling, belching sound the corridor had begun to make. He looked over and a breath escaped him. “I don’t think I can walk... I need help...” Her leg was completely gone, severed by the fire door when it had slammed shut like two metallic teeth just above her knee, blood flowing about the jagged shard of bone that remained leaving her face spotted with red where the blood had burst. Where it oozed from her stump, the floor absorbed it like a sponge sucking and churning. Lee just stared, his body useless and quivering till, like a muscular twitch, the floor flipped him onto his back.

“It’s not often that anything gets away from the spire.” Lee turned his head toward Lucas, who stood unmoved in the corridor, now in a long red robe his hands tucked into wide sleeves. Where he stood, the floor remained stone in a small circle around his feet, like an island in a stream. As he walked, slowly toward them, the circle followed him, as if where he stood froze and where he left melted into the fleshy gelatinous floor. “Thank you for finding him for us.” He continued, watching as the body, still unidentified, disappeared past him into the black bowels of the tower. He looked round at them both with a ravenous smile “Didn’t get far, did he?”

Speechless for terror, Lee just mouthed up at Lucas like a fish, before turning back to Steph, who was unconscious on her back, sinking deeper and deeper into the red tissue of the floor. He tried to move only to find he was now suckered to the ground as well. “You will be devoured.” Lucas said simply. “My lady is hungry you see. It never seems to stop.” As Lee’s hands were suddenly dragged down, forcing him onto his back to be absorbed and consumed he only found his voice in time to scream at Lucas’ smiling face, as Evelyn Spire consumed him.