Project 45 Prologue

Project 45
Prologue
The smell in the air makes me think of the darkness, the heavy curtains always drawn over every window. The chill reminds me somehow of the sun burning on my face. There’s an echo of the screams, rushing through my ears as if the wind were carrying them to me. It all comes back as I throw the doors wide open, they crash against the walls, creaking and spluttering from the years they’ve been locked and abandoned. Now ivory has spread like mould over the peeling white paint, I hear the roots crack, weak as common weeds.
I make it inside the building before the doors slam back the other way; it’s a satisfying feeling, my pace a relaxed stroll, taking a glance in the rusted mirror at my cowboy boots. It makes me feel in control again, my clapping footsteps determined and steady. It seems impossible that someone has really been in here, the deadbolts on the front doors had been as stiff as the ones on the outer gate. I had to hack into the steel with the heavy axe still grasped in my completely dry hand, nothing but a distant voice in my head to betray what I should be feeling about being here again.
Even though it’s so silent, despite the lack of living creatures for miles around, someone had been here, and very recently. The trail begins at the entrance, stopping (or starting) right against the doors. It runs through the corridor, all the way down to the doors on the other side. I allow myself just a fraction of breathing time before I bend down and confidently press my index finger into the liquid. It’s cold now, but still wet and shimmering, not showing any signs of drying, even around the edges. One thing I’m sure of is that this trail wasn’t here the last time I was. I lift my finger to my nostril, taking in that sticky smell, almost rust, almost rotten, but overwhelmingly sweet. I begin to falter, resting my knees back on the heels of my boots. That was just a glitch, a tiny unnoticeable moment before I’m back on two feet.
I need another glance in the mirror, my boots untouched by the blood, my face still cold from the outside, my hands dry. The smell of blood alone would’ve been enough to crack me once, but today I wait, and let myself get used to it.
I speak directly to the mirror, ‘Lawrence Duncan,’ I address myself so, because that is my name, ‘keep your head together.’ My voice doesn’t carry very far in the stillness, but it sounds commanding and powerful to my ears.
I think about how thick the trail is, and understand without compassion how deep the cuts must’ve gone to spill blood this dark. It’s the kind of blood you keep locked inside you, flowing to the organs that need it most, rich with life giving oxygen. Clean and pure blood, I remember that much, I wish I didn’t. I think that’s why I’m so calm, I’ve dedicated my life to keeping these truths from everyone else, and I’m not going to stop.
The white tiled floor contrasts almost beautifully with the velvet blood, soft and flowing against hard and unmoving. It’s like a scar down a beautiful face, it doesn’t have to make the face less beautiful, only unique and exotic. As much as I try to accept the smell, it refuses to work any gentler on my senses. I wipe my finger on the floor next to trail, and it’s only now I realise how neat it is. There are no splashes, no deviations from the track. The trail leads in one perfectly straight line, so perfect it’s impossible to tell which side of the corridor it began and where it ends. I have no option but the follow my path.
There’s a prickly doubt creeping over me as I walk, like a child on a macabre treasure quest. There are several things I find strange, all the bright neon lights are switched on, despite the daylight breaking through the windows. One of the lights ahead flickers wildly, the years of crumbling, decaying moths sparkling erratically against the walls, also tiled white. The daylight and the uncovered windows worry me enough, the daylight used to remind me of the things I did, my gut clenches painfully at the intentions I know are behind this symbolic gesture. My feet start to slow, but my palms are still dry. I toss the hair back out of my eyes with a confident grin, aimed at whoever might be watching.
I get a sudden and uncontrollable fear that grips me like icy chains around my chest, I only hope whatever is at the end of the bloody road is distinguishable as a human. If I can’t do anything else at least I can make sure they’re not forgotten, I can tell the family, and even if I can’t do that, maybe I can imagine what their face would look like unclouded with the fear of death. The fear goes as quickly as it came, my heroic thoughts act as a sponge, soaking up my doubt. I have always been selfish in my bravery, imagining the smiling faces and silent tears as they look up gratefully towards me.
The doors on the other side of the corridor are locked also, they look as if they haven’t been touched, a large spider web sprawls across the glass, glimmering in the harsh artificial light. The edges of the windows are heavily coated with dust. I raise my axe high and aim disastrously at the padlock, the axe gets wedged into the door frame, the wood splinters and crackles. I take a deep breath and try again, swinging less like a lumberjack this time, reigning in the morbid excitement. The rust crumbles and speckles the white floor and the metal falls away effortlessly, just like the other bolts and locks have done. The scrape of the metal against the rust still screams through my mind like an echo, but I try to ignore it. The rest of the padlock lands with a clunk in the blood, causing droplets to deviate from the strict line.
The doors open less dramatically this time, slithering over the tiles with a dry squeal, a sound like a shiver down the spine. The trail stops directly at the door’s edge, once again there’s nothing after it except polished white. The doors open onto a large hall, nothing in the room apart from pale wooden church benches pushed tightly to the side of the walls, an altar neatly tucked away in the far corner. The high ceiling opens onto a glass dome and the sunlight illuminates everything. Every detail is unchanged, the hall exactly as it was.
There is a large metal barrel perched at the room’s edge, blue paint peeled to reveal the tin beneath. I feel a little giddy and a little sick, I think I have found the grim treasure at the end of the bloody rainbow. I grit my teeth and move a step closer, feeling the slightest flutter of a shaking hand. With a set jaw I peer into the barrel.
I hadn’t managed to acclimatize myself to the smell, not at all. The liquid is as thick as molasses, eerily black though the bright lights betrayed the deep earthen red that it really was. I take my face swiftly from the edge and breathe in the cleaner air. At least now I know, and what was in that barrel was never going to be identified as a human. I could’ve tried harder, but the sweetness of the smell is working its way into my stomach, and I have to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.
I move back quickly from the barrel, counting the seconds it took to steal my confidence and make my heart beat like a ticking bomb against my tightening ribs. I need to get away from here, away from this smell and this place and the mess my foolish heroics has gotten me into again. Something catches me eye and has an effect on my strained, nervous state of mind. It could be the light glinting off something in the distance, the stone angel that was once part of this church, I’m looking at her with different eyes, or I’m caught by the spider returning to it’s web. Whatever it is, it throws me off balance. I topple onto my knees, my beautiful cowboy books skid in the blood, the white leather ruined.
I somehow manage to gain control of my nerves and my balance, but without looking down I slip in the blood once more, and as I crash back to earth I know this is the big one. I fall straight into the barrel, my broken yelp dying in my mouth on the way down, the evil red glint in the liquid seems to be laughing darkly at me. I land heavily on my back, crashing into an adjacent door, the wood banging against the walls also sounds like laughter, all my bravado and confidence washed clean away from my body.
It’s too late. The blood, the crushed chunks of pale bone, the sickening white smears, the dark purple things, fragments and pieces, resting on the surface of this human lake the way I imagine a diseased and polluted stream running over an abattoir floor. The filth of a thousand cattle. There is a mass of clogged and matted hair. This time I do scream, and the slosh makes it’s slow progress towards me. I scramble wildly away from it, backing further into the room.
Only then do I realise where I am. I crawl around to face the wall, someone has turned the projector on once more and its image spreads over the entire back wall. A golden sun rises over and over on a juddering loop, the great mass heaves itself over the horizon. The cracks in the wall break up the image and the real sunlight dulls it. There are bricks gouged out of the room’s structure and the old jammed film ignores them so that there are black spots like cancer over this flat sun.
I put my head in my hands and start to cry. Thick shivering tears spill down to join the slurry that moves closer to me. This was project 45, this is what we died for.