The building looked old, was Nessa’s first thought, but then again, many of the surrounding buildings in the neighborhood looked old at first glance. A closer look would identify the fact that this was indeed an area of slow urban gentrification, whether the small signs like the rose garden peeking out from behind one of the low white fences or the newer model cars that were increasing in number along the street as she walked down it. It was evident that there was a movement towards a better life along the street, and Nessa was glad to see it. The affluence of her employers meant more job security, after all, and not all nannies were keeping their jobs for long in the economy, improved though it was.
Glancing at the card in her hand, she checked the number of the apartment building for the fiftieth time that morning – 14 Newburg St, Mrs. Walker, Apt 413 – and breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that the building to her right bore the same number. The agency hadn’t told her much; just that the single parent worked all day, and the older kids would need someone to watch them from the time they got home from school until suppertime. The youngest was three and the mother abhorred the very notion of daycare, so Nessa would be watching her all day, taking care of the older kids, some light housework, and some other simple chores. After growing up in a house with ten kids, Nessa reckoned that it would all be simplicity itself.
After walking up the blue painted concrete steps, Nessa opened the heavy oak door and let herself into the dim vestibule of the apartment building. On one wall, mailboxes jostled for elbowroom while a row of lit buzzers sat resolutely next to them. Several of the little lights on the buzzer panel weren’t lit, but the one labeled “24” glowed brightly. Nessa pressed it and was rewarded by hearing a tiny ‘click’ from the door leading further inside. Nessa pulled open the door and made her way into the even dimmer hallway beyond.
An ornate wrought-iron staircase led up, its treads covered with multifloral red carpet, while another door at the far end of the hall seemed to offer potential escape back into the sun-lit world. Nessa shook off the sudden feeling of gloom the hallway seemed to engender and made her way up, feet clumping up the risers to the second floor and onwards to the third. The building was absolutely still, with no sounds of life anywhere. This in itself seemed odd as it was just eight o’ clock on a Monday morning and there should have been kids leaving for school or parents leaving for work. Nothing stirred, however, and Nessa continued her long walk up to the fourth floor.
When she reached the fourth floor, she stopped at the top of the stairs to catch her breath. Looking down into the shadows made her feel dizzy, and she quickly turned around to walk down the corridor to apartment 413. When she got there, the door swung open before she could even knock and a well-dressed woman in her thirties smiled at Nessa.
“Right on time,” she said cheerfully. “Becka is down for a nap and should be fine for another half hour or so. Marcia and Greg left about twenty minutes ago, so you won’t meet them until later. I have to run, but there is a list of numbers by the fridge. Becka likes mac and cheese, so you can make a fast friend by making that for lunch. The food is in the cabinets – feel free to explore the kitchen and the rest of the apartment. The only room I ask you to stay out of is the one at the end of the hall – that is my room. The rest is fine. Do you have any questions?”
“No, Mrs. Walker,” said Nessa. “The agency gave me a full run down of what I would need to know. The list of phone numbers will be a help, and my mac and cheese is second to none.“
“Wonderful! And call me Gwendolyn,” said her employer. “I have to run. Good luck, dear.”
The woman almost ran from the apartment, and Nessa closed the door with some amusement, wondering how many times the woman would call over the course of the day. It almost seemed like she couldn’t wait to get away from the place. With a shrug, Nessa put her purse on the table and went to check out the rest of the apartment. It was nice, decorated in an almost boring way with bland furniture and dull curtains. A very few knickknacks were scattered around the main rooms, but in the children’s bedrooms were books, walls covered with posters, and toys a-plenty. No matter how Spartan the rest of the house, the children were lacking in nothing.
One last room near Gwendolyn’s was set up as a small office, complete with generic office furniture, an older iMac, and a slightly decrepit but apparently still functional all-in-one printer. There was nothing of character in the room, and Nessa began to wonder about the seeming lack of personality her employer exhibited. At least the children had some character.
With a smile, Nessa went to check on the youngest member of the family and found her still asleep in her bed, thumb jammed tightly into her mouth. Nessa shut the door quietly again so as not to wake her and set out to explore the kitchen. She wasted no time in putting a whistling kettle on to simmer, planning out the right amount for both mac and cheese as well as a cup of tea later. She had brought her own as well as some little packets of honey from the restaurant she’d eaten at the night before. She hadn’t known whether her employer would have either tea or honey on hand, so had felt it better to be prepared.
While the water was heating, Nessa poked through the rest of the cabinets, finding her way through all the ingredients and taking down what she would need for making the mac and cheese later. She also grabbed a pan from the cabinet near the sink and made a note to herself that she could not find a frying pan and should perhaps make a list of things to ask Gwendolyn the next time she talked to her.
While she was jotting down her ideas on the pad of paper she’d found near the phone, Nessa heard a faint sound, small and almost insignificant, outside the door of the apartment. She paused, listening, and the sound came again. It sounded almost like someone hitting a wall with a heavy object. The sound was so faint, though, that Nessa could only guess that the sound was from further away and was echoing oddly from somewhere else nearby. She turned away from the door and busied herself with the kettle, which was just beginning to whistle. She fixed herself a cup of tea and was just taking her first sip when she heard the noise again, this time louder. Setting the cup down on the counter next to the stove, Nessa once again approached the door of the apartment and nervously put her eye to the peephole.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The corridor beyond was empty, but there seemed to be a fine mist of dust floating through the air beyond the door. Putting the safety chain on the door, Nessa unlocked the deadbolt and cracked open the door. The fine sifting of dust filled the hallway with a faint cloud. Nessa quickly closed the door again and tried to figure out what it might be. It wasn’t smoke, that was for sure. There was no smell of burning. No alarms had gone off. She went to one of the kitchen windows and looked out. There was no sign of the dust outside, and the day looked as cheerful as it had when she first arrived.
Puzzled, Nessa went back to her tea, and had just taken a sip when another, louder bang actually shook the floor of the building. This time, Nessa opened the door all the way and looked out on a hallway filled with dust and cracked plaster covering the once-bright carpeting of the corridor. Fear began to creep into Nessa’s mind and she closed the door, running for the phone. When she picked up the receiver, however, there was only static. Frantically she pulled her phone from her purse, but it didn’t even show a half a bar. No service.
Another, even louder bang came from beyond the apartment door, followed this time by a distinct splintering of wood. Nessa decided it was definitely time to leave. Running for the door to Becka’s room , she opened it wide, planning to at least get the little girl to safety. When she entered the room, however, she found herself confronted by an empty bed. There was no little girl.
Nessa looked around wildly. There was no one in the room. That itself was impossible. It was less than an hour ago that Gwendolyn had shown her around the house, and she herself had seen the little girl asleep in the room. But wait. Gwendolyn hadn’t shown her around. Nessa had explored on her own, which meant she might be mistaking the rooms for which one had the little girl sleeping in it.
Quickly, she went into all of the other rooms, leaving only Gwendolyn’s room untouched. There was no one else in the bedrooms, the office, the living room, or the kitchen. The bathroom was also untenanted.
As a last resort, Nessa looked in Gwendolyn’s room in an effort to find Becka. The room itself was completely empty. No bed, no dresser, no furniture of any kind was in the room. On the far wall, the closet gaped like an open mouth, and one twisted wire coat hanger clung forlornly to the tilted rod. Huge spider webs filled the corners of the room and, on the floor, there was an old dried stain darkening the wood in a wide patch, but that was all.
The crashing noise came again, and in a panic, Nessa turned and ran back into the rest of the apartment. She threw open the doors to the other rooms she had so recently explored, only to find them just as empty. The children’s rooms were bare down to the floors, the walls stripped of posters and the windows blank and staring empty eyes. The office was empty and echoing. The floors themselves had a layer of dust covering them, and it was thick enough to see that there were no footprints tracking through it. On each, however, there was a similar discoloration to the floors. It seemed obvious no one had been there for a long, long time.
Nessa turned as another crash shook the building hard enough to rattle the windows in their casements. The plaster walls of the room she was in cracked, and Nessa turned to go back into the living room. That room, too, was empty and the dust was as thick on the floor here as it was in the other rooms. She went quickly through into the kitchen and found it empty, the phone dangling by a frayed wire from the wall and her pocketbook sitting alone on a dirty counter that had not been cleaned in a long time. There was no teacup. She grabbed her purse and ran back to the front door, pulling it open with a rusty screech.
The hallway was a mass of twisted debris and water-stained carpeting that was greasy with dirt. The path to the stairs was mostly clear, and Nessa wasted no time racing to the staircase and making her way down it as fast as her feet could carry her. The stairs held firm but on the second landing, Nessa had to grab for the railing as the crash came again, horrifically close and hard enough for her to loose her balance.
Once the shaking had stopped, she ran down the last stairs and tried the front door. It was shut tight, and there appeared to be boards nailed over it. It did not surprise her to see all of the bell lights were out and the empty mailboxes ajar. She turned and looked at the back door. She ran down the dilapidated hallway to where the back door beckoned with its welcoming light. The floor of the hallway was filled with rubble and broken glass, so she had to pick her way over it carefully. Outside, the huge wrecking ball was in the process of backing up for another swing. When the men saw her exit the building, they stopped everything.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” yelled the crane operator, jumping down and striding over to where she stood.
“I had a job. I got hired to take care of someone’s kids,” said Nessa, her eyes wide and her breath coming in gasps. She turned to look back over her shoulder at the building, noting its broken windows and tattered fire escape.
“Lady, there’s been no one living there for years. Certainly no kids. Didn’t you read the sign out front? I could have you arrested for trespassing!”
“What sign?” asked Nessa, bewildered.
“On the front of the building!” said the man. “What were you doing in there?”
Instead of answering, Nessa reached into her back pocket for the card the agency had given her and handed it to the man. He took one look at it, and his face went white. He showed it to the others and handed he card back to her without a word.
“Go home,” he said finally in a quiet voice. “Go home and thank God we were to destroy the building. Be thankful that you didn’t stay there for long and tell the agency that Mrs. Walker will not be needing their services any more. The building won’t be here for her any longer.”
The men all gave Nessa a sympathetic look and turned away without a word. Nessa walked quickly around to the front of the building and found that there was indeed a sign on the building saying “Condemned!! DANGER!!” She took out her camera phone, snapped a picture of the front of the building, and left, looking back over her shoulder in disbelief until the building itself was no longer visible.
On her long walk home, Nessa made up her mind. Whatever secret lay in the apartment on the fourth floor could remain with it. She had no desire to search further into whatever it was that she had so nearly been trapped by. She could only guess at the fate she had so narrowly escaped and wonder what might have happened if not for the luck of the wrecking ball.