It didn’t take long to stack all the bodies upon the landing. I should have started throwing them as we brought them out, but I was putting it off. Besides Chez, this beast in the depths was the only connection I had, and I was about to kill it in the most horrifying way I could imagine.

“The only way out of this building is through the lobby,” I recited to myself, as I had more than a dozen times when I was piling the corpses high. “If I want to leave, the beast has to die,” I finished.

There were over forty corpses piled on the landing, a daunting bastion of flesh, and the six smallest ones sitting on top stirred feelings of disgust in my chest. I didn’t understand goblins, and I was starting to think I never would. Chez’s actions had shocked me, but there was no chance I would turn him away. I couldn’t bear to face this world alone again, and I needed someone I could trust to watch my back. I had gotten extremely lucky in my first few battles, and the goblins we had killed last night and with poison had been far more numerous and better armed than any we had fought before. Their knives had handles too small for me to use, and their clubs weren’t any longer than my pipe wrench, but they could do some severe damage if they hit me. Fighting alone wouldn’t be possible anymore.

I glanced at the female, and she flinched under my gaze. I didn’t have to trust her or like her, and there would be a locked door between us while we slept, but for now, I wasn’t going to do anything. She made Chez happy, and if she proved she could be trusted, it would be one more goblin watching my back.

I sighed and stopped trying to distract myself from the real issue. I picked up the first corpse and carried it to the railing. I couldn’t bring myself to whistle, the very idea of doing it made my betrayal hurt even worse, so I just heaved the corpse over the side. The usual, sickening splat echoed up from the depths, and the delighted roar I had grown fond of replied as it always did. I heaved the healthy, untainted bodies over first, hoping that the beast could enjoy himself for a little while at least. I imagined it would take a while to work through forty bodies.

~Ding

Base Stat Improved: Strength Base Strength has reached level 5

The alert came when I was nearly finished with my macabre work, and while I was pleased with the progress, I didn’t stop and kept heaving bodies over the side. I didn’t take a break until the landing was clear. I tried not to think about the beast below, even as his delighted moans and the crunching of bones echoed up the stairwell. I stared at the steps up to the next floor where ice cream and a soft bed were waiting for me, but I was too tired and shambled back into the hallway. I tried not to look at the three healthy corpses piled next to the door and tried not to think about what my decision to keep them here meant.

For the first time since the apocalypse had begun, I walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. As I waited, I wondered why I had waited so long. When I had reached floor 54 after my crazed dash, I had been more interested in taking care of Chez and exploring my newly claimed territory than returning to my home floor. Once the lights went out, and I was forced into action, I wasn’t daring enough to take an elevator to a floor I hadn’t secured. Elevator doors stayed open too long, closed too slowly, and could be stopped by anything sticking their arm in the door. I could easily be ambushed as soon as the elevator arrived and be unable to escape, and since I always slept on the new floors, I had no reason to use an elevator to get back, though in hindsight, I could have been sleeping in my own bed all this time.

My body ached as I remembered the deluxe, soft bed I had stolen shortly before my adventure to the higher floors. I came up with a new plan. I would collect the ice cream and then return to my home on floor 37.

The arrival ding of the elevator roused me from my thoughts, and the elevator to my right started to open. I was alarmed to discover the inside was smeared with dried blood as if something wounded had managed to find its way in and then clawed at the walls to get out. The implications were alarming. It meant that at least one goblin had figured out how to call an elevator, and whatever it was had obviously figured out how to get out. There was no corpse in the elevator, and as I stepped in, I saw the buttons were also smeared with blood.

Something about the buttons made me pause. The keyhole labeled fireman was a circle with three little spurs sticking out. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Chez and the female I had yet to name quickly followed me into the elevator, and Chez was extremely curious about the new “room” he had never seen before. He reached to press one of the buttons inside like he had seen me do to summon the elevator, but I gently pulled his arm back and said, “No.”

The female started to panic when the elevator door closed by itself, trapping us inside, but I ignored her and reached into my pocket. I felt silly that my first thought upon seeing a keyhole hadn’t been “key,” but in my defense, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted at this point.

I pulled out my ever-growing keyring and held up one of the first keys I had found. It was a thin metal tab with a cylindrical head, and a single notch sticking out of it. I had found one on almost every floor and had left them behind along with the duplicate stairwell keys. It didn’t have the three notches I saw on the elevator keyhole, but it was too similar to let the opportunity pass without even trying it. Then I slid the key into the “off” position and turned it all the way to the right, which was labeled “on.” The only thing that changed was that a square button with a picture of a fireman’s hat lit up.

I remembered from the fire safety drills that the elevators would be inoperable for us because they would be reserved for the use of emergency responders only. I wondered if that meant that none of the other floors could call this elevator as long as the key was turned, but I didn’t have the energy to test it right now. It was incredibly important, as the blood in this elevator proved that the goblins could use it and infiltrate my secured floors, but it was going to have to wait till tomorrow. I hadn’t even powered down the floor I had just conquered.

I pressed the button for floor 54, and the elevator brought us there as it normally would, but the door didn’t open. Confused, I pressed the “open door” button, and the doors started to open and then closed immediately. I was worried something was wrong and that I would be trapped, but I pressed and held the “open door” button, and the doors started opening. When they were halfway open, I took my finger off the button, and they started closing again, so I held it down until they were fully open. I took my finger off hesitantly, but they remained open.

I didn’t want to leave my key in here when the doors were acting strangely, even if it was likely due to the key, but I found I didn’t have to disable the fire mode, the key slid out from the on position without issue, and that explained why there were multiple notches on the keyhole.

I retrieved my bucket of ice cream and returned to find the elevator doors still open. When I pressed “37” to return to my apartment, nothing happened. With a sigh of frustration, I closed the door with the “close door” button and learned that I had to hold it down the entire time, just like the open door button. Once it was closed, pressing floor 37 worked properly.

When I arrived on my home floor, there was the usual elevator “ding,” but of course, the door did not open. I held the button down to open it with a sigh, and then I heard Chez scream. I released the button, turned, and drew my knife as a bestial roar echoed within the elevator, and an arm pressed through the narrow gap in the elevator doors that had already begun to close again.

The arm was a dark, steel grey with thick, protruding veins and bulging muscles. The arm was reaching and flailing as the elevator door pinned it against the wall, and whatever it was roared in frustration. It looked like the painted arm of a champion weightlifter, at least until I saw the tips of its fingers. Thick, wicked black claws took the place of fingernails, much like Chez’s own hands, except these looked like they could tear a man apart with ease. With an ear-splitting screech, the monster’s claws left scratches in the metal door.

Chez and the female goblin were trembling in terror as if they knew what it was and knew their end had come, but Chez had raised his spear with shaking hands in defiance. I considered stabbing the arm with one of my own spears, but I was worried that it wouldn’t do enough damage to make a difference, and I hadn’t sharpened them after my training session. The goblins we had fought had been too fragile for me to care, but whatever this was, its voice and that excessively muscled arm radiated power.

The beast started battering the outside of the elevator door, and I started to panic. I pressed a button for another floor, but nothing happened as the door wasn’t fully closed. I didn’t know if it would break in eventually, but we were trapped here unless it gave up. I didn’t know if it could even remove its arm if it wanted to. I had no idea how much force elevator doors had.

I raised my hunting knife and took a few deep breaths in an attempt to force myself to relax and to focus. I had just killed over forty goblins in the last twenty-four hours. No matter what this was, it couldn’t be worse than an army of goblins. I waited until the arm was extended, palm sideways with the meaty part of the forearm facing me, and lunged forward. I swung the knife down with all my strength, and the sharp blade sliced through the forearm of the beast until it hit bone.

The monster screamed in agony as its crimson blood gushed out from the wound, though it sounded more like rage than pain. Its hand, and most importantly, its claws, hung limp after I severed the muscles and tendons on the underside of its arm. With much more confidence than I had before, I slashed the bit of upper arm I could reach between the elbow and the door. It took a few awkward slashes because the arm was pinned at an awkward angle, but I severed both the bicep and triceps just above the elbow. The arm was completely useless now, and blood gushed freely onto the linoleum floor of the elevator.

I debated opening the door to finish off whatever the hell this thing was, wondering how tough it could be with one arm crippled, but the enraged roars gave me pause. The beast didn’t sound hurt or dying. It only sounded pissed off. Anything that could have its arm eviscerated and feel nothing but rage scared the hell out of me. With so much blood rushing out from its wounds, it was only a matter of time till it dropped dead, so I settled in to wait.