Free Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill

secretly wished the figure would not disappear or pass by.
    Trying to smile, he found he had no control over his facial muscles; it must have looked as if he were about to cry. He stopped trying to smile, and waved. Embarrassed when the hooded figure never so much as moved, he let his hand drop to his side and wondered whether he should crouch in a corner and never bother anyone again. That’s why he was here.
    The figure moved forward away from the trees. Slowly, it wandered through the long grass, avoiding big clumps of dark wet nettles, until it reached the edge of the stone steps. The urns upon them held dry brown stalks. The figure looked up at him. Inside the hood, Seth could see no face.
    ‘What’s ya name?’ the boy asked.
    ‘Seth.’
    ‘Why you in there?’
    Seth looked at his feet. He paused to swallow, then looked up and shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
    ‘I know why. You got scared and crazy. Same as me. You’ll be in there for ages. And then some place much worse.’
    Inside the stone prison, Seth began to feel something cold skitter about his stomach. His skin goosed and his vision flicked about. It was hard to breathe.
    ‘Makes you shit-scared, don’t it?’ the boy asked.
    Tears burned Seth’s face and he gripped the bars of the gate so tightly that all the feeling disappeared from his hands. He kept squeezing even though he knew it would leave bruises. ‘It’s too late,’ he said, in a thin voice that broke around the edges.
    ‘It ain’t,’ the hooded boy said with defiance. ‘I can get you out.’
    ‘But we’ll get in trouble,’ Seth replied, and hated himself for saying that.
    ‘Who gives a shit? And anyway, no one thinks of you. Not no more. You’re forgotten.’
    Seth tried to say no but knew the hooded boy was telling the truth.
    ‘Do yous want to come out?’ the boy asked, rummaging in a deep pocket.
    Snuffling back his tears, Seth nodded.
    From his coat pocket the boy withdrew a large iron key. But Seth never really looked at the key; he couldn’t take his eyes from the boy’s hand. It was purple and yellow and just the sight of it made him feel sick. The skin had melted and then gone hard again. Some of the fingers were stuck together.
    Crooked fingers folded around the key’s large butterfly-shaped handle and turned it in the lock of the gate. The mechanism made a groaning sound before the barred portal swung open.
    Too frightened to move his bare feet from the marble floor of the chamber, Seth remained inside for a while, shivering. The boy retreated to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at Seth. He put his hands back inside the pockets of his snorkel coat and assumed his usual posture: relaxed but expectant.
    The sky over the wood turned dark. Either night was coming or the clouds brooded closer to the treetops.
    The hooded boy began to look over his shoulder and watch the woods. Seth instinctively knew he had to hurry and make up his mind. Did he stay or leave? It was as if another much bigger gate had been opened in the world outside the chamber and if he wasn’t quick enough it might close again and leave him stranded. And together for too long in the same place, they could attract attention. He had a sense they might be spotted at any minute by someone in the trees.
    Seth ventured out through the gate and into the grass on weak legs unused to exercise. He thought of his limbs as spindly sticks of vegetable left to go soft in the bottom of a fridge.
    He stood in the grass and marvelled at how the stalks felt on the soles of feet so used to stone, at the pluck of the breeze against his naked skin, and at his excitement at the sight of a path that led into the thick, deciduous foliage of the wood.
    The hooded boy moved toward the trees. Anxiously, Seth followed.
    From the edge of the wood, he took a last look over his shoulder at the chamber and its little yellow light. Further up the path, the boy encouraged Seth to follow by doing nothing more than waiting and staring at