The Corridor - part 6

The smell hit her first, sweet but acrid at the same time. The whole floor was moving, the white carpet appeared alive and that is where the pattering noise came from. She saw flashes of red amongst the white and then streaks of pinkish grey. The carpet was alive, alive with albino rats. She swallowed the scream the was trying to force itself out of her mouth. She knew she had to face what the room was showing her but to actually manifest one of her fears so physically wasn’t what she had been expecting. Pictures and memories she could deal with but this…………




She forced herself to step into the room, the rat carpet parted and made a path for her, but she could feel them moving around her feet. Pictures of all her nightmares and terrors, some real and some imaginary, stared out at her, starkly black and white in blood red frames. The image she had remembered on the beach was there, the cupboard her Mother used to lock her in as punishment full of dark corners and rustling noises was there as well. The image of the cliff edge where Lewis had jumped to his death over 20 years ago stark and grainy in its splendour, she had made herself go there and stand on the very edge after his funeral. She had wobbled and almost thrown herself over it, only her fear of heights had stopped her. As the horror of the images sank into her brain it felt like her skin was being stretched too tight over her face and that her eyes were starting to bulge like all the air was   being sucked out of her, and the room was becoming like a vacuum. She had to get out of there. She felt like the suffocation of her mind was unhinging her further than she was already. She charged out of the room, her limbs totally uncoordinated, kicking rats as she went. She almost threw herself out of the doorway. One more door awaited her………


She stood in the red room, bent over, her hands on knees, breathing hard. She could hear her pulse in her ears, it was beating along with the rhythmic beat that been dogging her journey, she had thought it was drums, but now it appeared closer it did sound more like a heartbeat. She caught her breath and stood straight, the last door awaited her.


(Copyright P Lainchbury 2012)