"Stay" by John Russell

Stay

by John Russell

It’s Deep. 

The words were spray painted on a wall in the corner of the parking garage. The corner was covered with shadows, but I could still see the drips of dried black paint from each letter. The words may as well have been in lights. They weren’t there when I moved in, I would have noticed.

I was getting used to my new apartment, and I loved it, but like anywhere it had its quirks. I was on my own for the first time in a long time. The feeling of freedom that came with it was exactly what I needed after my last relationship. A new place, new surroundings, new things to figure out, and time to settle in also came with the new found freedom.

I’d gone out for some Chinese takeout for the night’s dinner. It was the first time since I moved in that I didn’t eat while sitting on the floor in the living room. On the way back I noticed another line beneath It’s Deep—It’s Dark.

The spray paint was shiny and still dripped from the letters. Like someone knew I would be passing by and was trying to tell me something. From my car, the shadows in the corner along with the parked cars hid half of the wall. Was there more?

Back in my apartment I unpacked another box of books to put on the shelves. The message on the wall begged me to make sense of it. Maybe it was some kind of riddle or puzzle I could solve. I grabbed a flashlight and headed into the parking garage.

The garage had a musty smell mixed with exhaust fumes. A few of the lights flickered in different areas, giving me the notion of movement. I walked past sporadically parked cars, seeing oil stains in empty spaces. When I got to the corner I turned the flashlight on. A third line was freshly spray painted—Come See.

Carefully, I looked over the garage. No one was there. The light's ambient buzz was the only sound. I moved closer to the corner, lighting up as much as I could with my flashlight. A large black puddle was on the ground under the words. The flashlight beam shone through, but there was no garage floor in the puddle. No concrete, no bottom.

I pulled out a nail I’d put in my pocket earlier and dropped it into the puddle. The puddle gathered into a mini geyser and reached up and grabbed the nail before easing it down. I watched the nail sink until it was gone into the deep, dark puddle.

Another line appeared on the wall—Closer.

I stood on the tips of my toes and leaned over the edge, careful not to get too close. The buzz from the garage lights was muffled, like I was under water. The puddle spread wider. I stepped back. The puddle widened again…this time rolling under my feet. It lifted me into the air. I was floating. Around me shades of pink and purple transformed into liquid shapes of people. They weren’t complete, but I knew who they were. My grandparents. My parents. My sister, aunts, and uncles. My ex. Tears flowed over my cheeks as I smiled at the sight. As I floated, there was no parking garage anymore, only shapes of pink and purple shaping and reshaping.

Just as quickly as my family appeared in liquid form, the colors changed. Tar-colored liquid reshaped into a slobbering rottweiler that bit me when I was a kid. The evil face of the bully that beat me up in high school appeared in front of me. And then I was alone in the darkness. I wasn’t floating anymore, but held in one place by the liquid tar, entombed, like a fossil. The liquid thickened and hardened around me as I struggled to break away, but there was no escaping.

***

Leah locked her apartment door behind her and hurried to the parking garage. She’d been late for work twice already this month and couldn’t afford another miscue. Her heels clicked and echoed through the garage level as she made her way to her car in the back corner. The same words that she’d seen since she moved in two years ago were on the wall in the corner—It’s Deep. Today though, a man stood beneath them.

“Hello? Mister?” Leah’s timid voice echoed in the corner.

The man stood motionless, stuck in the pose, perfectly still. His head angled down towards a puddle on the ground.

Leah’s heels clicked softer on the concrete as she moved in slowly. She kept a safe distance away and moved around him to see his face. There was no white in his eyes, they were solid, glassy black. Black colored tear stains were dried to his cheeks. His face was fixed like he was smiling in spite of being terrified.

Leah backpedaled but didn’t go anywhere. A heel caught on the cement and she stumbled back, landing on her butt. The puddle spread, reaching towards her. She pulled her knees tight to her chest, lifting as much of herself away from the black liquid as possible. She closed her eyes as the puddle pooled around her.

New letters appeared on the garage wall—STAY.