Going Down

This was a situation he’d seen depicted in everything from horror movies to the cheesiest sitcom,but he’d never expected to encounter it in real life.

The lift had juddered to a halt exactly six minutes ago,long enough for him to intuit that this state of affairs might take a while to be resolved.He’d been hoping to hear a voice,that’s what happened on tv.A police officer,a firefighter or a grizzled security guard,working out his last week before retirement,speaking in a comforting tone,assuring them that help was on the horizon and,in the meantime,not to panic.

But,there was not a sound.He looked around him and there appeared to be no camera either,another missing staple of these circumstances.What was going on,why had television and the movies lied to him so?

He became vividly aware of the lift’s other occupant.He’d noticed her when she’d stepped aboard,but since they’d become becalmed he’d done little more than cast a fleeting glance in her direction and had certainly done nothing so forward as attempt to talk with her.

She was a girl (a young woman,he corrected himself) of about nineteen years old,though she might have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty five.It was not a demographic with which he had a great deal of interaction other than where his nieces were concerned and he knew they could transform from children in their school uniform into women when they went out on a Saturday night.

He thought of himself as woke as woke could be,as feminist as humanly possible whilst being in possession of a penis,so he wanted to be sure to not act in any way that would make her uncomfortable.Should he try to engage her in conversation or leave her in peace? Wouldn’t it creep her out more if they spent the entirety of their time awaiting rescue in silence?

If he had to be stranded at all,why couldn’t it be with a male.He could do man talk in his slumbers.A bit of football,a touch of low level sexism,encoring with a chat about cars.He knew very little about automobiles,but enough to bluff and nod with conviction,and it wasn’t as if he’d be required to strip a carburettor!

He looked again at the girl.She was considerably younger than him so he’d resolved to make peace with that word.She appeared to be studying her phone forensically.He’d been unable to locate a signal and assumed she was experiencing the same problem.

He caught himself in a gaze that lasted far too long.He was first embarrassed at the prospect of being caught and then ashamed of the manner in which he’d been appraising her,but my,she was striking.No,she was startling.

She wore a short sleeved black top,flecked with gold that sparkled even in the dim light.Her skirt,he now noticed,was a black tutu and she wore black socks pulled up over her knees.Her outfit was completed by scuffed ankle boots,black,of course.He had no idea if this constituted a costume or fashion,but the ensemble synced perfectly with her slight body.

Her skin was flawless,marble white,her hair deathly black tied in perfectly symmetrical twin tails.Her eyes were large and rivetingly clear.He had the impression they were black,though that may have been a trick of his imagination.Her nose was tiny,stubby,cute like a little girl’s and her mouth curled up at the corners giving her face a feline aspect.Her make up was subtle,barely discernible,as though applied by a professional.

Now he’d evaluated her with such shameful thoroughness,he was unable to prevent himself taking repeat peaks.How sleazy was his behaviour.If he wasn’t careful he’d terrify the poor girl.Still,he looked again and met her eyes.Briefly disoriented,he considered blurting out an apology,then thought about making a joke.Instead,he did neither.

To his surprise,she was smiling softly,sweetly,shyly,coquettishly.Coquettishly? Where had that appeared from? What a weird and utterly inappropriate word.He couldn’t recall a time he’d ever used,or even thought,it before.

He concentrated on his phone,not because he expected to see anything of use,but more to remove the temptation to leer at his lift mate.

Time was becoming abstract,he was no longer certain how long they’d been stranded.He perused his surroundings as if expecting that a camera or a speaker,broadcasting words of calming reassurance, might have miraculously materialised.

He glanced at the girl again,she was leaning on the wall,as far from him as possible in such a confined space.She gazed intently down at her phone.He tried to remember what people used to pretend to do when they wanted to avoid social interaction.He once more withstood the urge to speak and once more rained kudos on himself for being just about the ideal man with whom to be trapped in a lift.

The lights went out,then returned with a flicker five seconds later.The lift jolted,dropped a couple of feet then came to a dead halt.It wasn’t much,but it was still encouraging.Work was obviously taking place,salvation was at hand.He glimpsed his fellow captive.She sent him a warm,if tentative,smile before looking away once more.

Oh my God,he ruminated,if I was ten years younger.Well,twenty years younger.He doused himself in realism.He could be ten years,twenty years younger,he could be a millionaire,no,a billionaire and there was still no chance in the actual past or speculative future this girl would ever give him a second’s consideration - excepting this situation.This was literally the only scenario where he could be the subject of undivided attention from a young woman such as this.

Three times more the sequence repeated.Darkness,lights flicker into life,the entire edifice shudders and is then motionless.At each instance he received a honeyed grin from his companion.

Finally,he had some optimism their ordeal was drawing to a close.Had it truly been an ordeal though.An inconvenience for sure,but an ordeal?

Thoughts began to drift to what he’d do once these steel doors opened to release them back into the world.Wouldn’t it be fun to go for a drink with his partner in peril to reminisce about their shared experience,but if he hadn’t uttered a word during all their time in captivity,conversation was unlikely to flow once they had the capacity to resume their everyday lives.

No,he consoled himself,he’d done the right thing,he’d made this tribulation as tranquil as possible for her.He’d been totally non threatening and respected her space in every way.His sense of smugness was overwhelming.

The blackness,lights return,lift moves cycle recurred twice more.On the third occasion,as the darkness illuminated,he was dismayed to find the girl standing only a foot away from him.The light glinted off her fangs before they disappeared beneath his eyeline and ripped deep into his throat.