Free In This Skin by Simon Clark

there on the floor. They danced around that solitary armchair to a fusion of funk, jazz, blues, soul, Motown, psychedelic free form, grunge,speed metal. She smiled to herself. How easy the images came to mind. This was the place to daydream, she told herself.
        A cool draft came from somewhere… that was strange, really, as outside, the Chicago night air was unseasonably warm, blowing from the cornfields of the south, not the Great Lakes to the north. This cool, refreshing current of air carried the scent of lush grass, woodland and the tang of fast-flowing rivers. The music she'd imagined receded into silence. Now she stood by the table onstage and sensed the weight of the Luxor's years pressing down on her. Shadows slid with all the relentless advance of floodwaters. Two minutes ago her flashlight could penetrate every corner to fill them with dazzling radiance. Now the bulb had weakened. The light yellowed. Shadows ran fearlessly from the walls.
        When she shone the light above her head it could no longer reach the ceiling. Instead she might as well have been trying to shine a light on the dark side of the moon. Above her lay black void. In that darkness she sensed movement. She detected a whispery rustle. Bat wings? Kay hated bats. She remembered when she used to take a shortcut through a cemetery at night to reach the 7-Eleven, the bats used to flit amongst the graveyard. Little scraps of darkness. Like the souls of dead children trying desperately to find a way home. They'd dart in at her face within inches, so close their slipstream felt like cold breath in her face.
        Now they were here in the building with her, circling somewhere just beyond the light. Her heart beat harder. Blood pulsed in her neck. She became acutely conscious of the tides of red flowing through her body.
        Where was Leon? What had happened to him? She recalled his joke about a psychopath lying in wait here. She shuddered. Points of moisture formed on her upper lip. Oh God, I want out of here.
        
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        Darkness reached out to her. She felt it breathing down her neck.
        Why did Leon leave me alone? Perhaps he's returned to the car for a joke? Maybe he sat there chuckling, waiting for her to run screaming from the building. Maybe he'd gotten bored and driven home. That's a long walk for a girl. All alone. A lot of hungry predators out there.
        Not hungry for food but another kind of nourishment a girl could offer.
        Kay's breasts goosed over, pushing her nipples against the fabric of her T-shirt. She crossed one forearm protectively across her chest so her right hand rested on her left shoulder.
        Oh God! There is someone in here. I can hear them. They're watching me.
        Suddenly she saw herself: A slender girl standing on the stage, glancing with frightened eyes at every creak and rustle, imagining them to be footsteps… or the sound of a knife blade slipping from a sheath. Now she knew someone would speak to her. Only too well she knew what the gloating voice would demand. Maybe a door would bang open and Leon's head would come tumbling across the dance floor toward her, spitting blood, trailing strands of glistening muscle.
        The door to the foyer banged. A rolling shape bounced through.
        ”Kay!”
        She screamed.
        ”Kay? What are you playing at?”
        ”Idiot!”She sighed deeply; her knees weakened so much she had to lean back against the table. ”You frightened me, Leon! Don't you ever-”
        ”Hey, Kay I damn well got it.”
        ”A poster?”
        ”A beautiful one.”He brandished a cardboard cylinder like a sword over his head. ”I had to go through about ninety of these tube things in a storeroom back there. They were all empty except this one.”
        Infected by his excitement, she forgot to be angry with him. His return had dispelled the mind ghosts. ”Who is it?”
        ”Flaming