"the leak"

The morning had been typical so far. His alarm had woken him, not once, not twice, but three times, each time dulled into submission by his snooze button; he had stumbled out of bed, made coffee that was too strong and too hot and woke himself up with that and a cigarette out on his apartment balcony, staring down through rainswept stories to the barely moving traffic below; he had selected his clothes for the day (which suit? And which tie with which suit?) impatiently, paying half his attention to the stock report on the radio, and the other half of his attention to the steadily marching numbers of his clock. Late again, they told him.

He dropped the half-finished cigarette into the half-finished coffee and headed for the bathroom, nearly running — no time for a shower, but he should at least shave before he —

(What's that dripping sound? If that's that damned faucet again, the manager is going to — )

He stopped, hand still on the bathroom light switch, and looked down at the floor . . . and then up at the ceiling, to its source.

Blood. That was his first thought. Water, just water, was his second thought, some burst rusty pipe somewhere staining the water this dark.

His third thought returned to the first. Blood.

No rusted water was this thick, spattered and spread like this. He knew blood when he saw it. He'd had a hundred nosebleeds, growing up, sensitive, sickly child. He knew the way blood looked and flowed.

He remembered the numbers he'd left in the room behind him. Clock numbers, important numbers, the time, he was already late —

I do not need this, he thought. I don't have time for this.

He licked his lips nervously. He should call someone — ?

He grabbed his wastebasket from by the sink — ugly little thing, brown plastic, childish floral pattern embossed gracelessly in its side — and pulled the plastic garbage bag out of it, set the bag aside, and set the wastebasket down in the puddle to catch the dripping blood.

There. That would do for now.

He didn't shave. Just pulled the bathroom door shut behind him, got dressed, and went to work.

+   +   +  

“Jesus, you look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Stephen said, automatically sarcastic, although he knew he must, in fact, look terrible.

“You get much sleep last night?” Jason said.

“Slept like a baby.” Stephen turned to him, gave him a wide, unshaven smile.

“Okay . . . You going to be ready to look over the blueline later?”

Everything since he'd arrived at work had seemed so defiantly normal, Stephen was able to sit back, slow down, and nearly convince himself that he must have been wrong. That can't have been blood. It must have been water, after all.

“What?”

“The blueline. You going to have time to take a look at it? I thought we were done with final edit, but Jenny says there's typos all through the damn thing, and I thought you'd want to — ”

“Oh. Sure. Bring it by whenever.”

“Will do.” Jason winked, patted Stephen on the shoulder, and headed for other cubicles.

It hadn't been blood.

Stephen turned back to his blank screen, knowing he needed to start on next issue's editorial. The cursor blinked patiently at him.

It hadn't been blood.

+   +   +  

It had.

He got home that evening, needing to go to the bathroom — the five cups of coffee he'd made it through the day with churning around in his system, eating away at his empty stomach — but finding excuses to do everything else first. To look at the day's mail, listen to messages on his answering machine. Turn on the television, evening news, catch the night's top story. Anything to avoid looking in the bathroom.

But he finally did, and before he opened the door, he heard it; the sound of dripping was worse.

He opened the door, and the bucket had been filled. The dripping had been steady and constant all day and had not let up — the bucket was overfull, now, each thick drop from the ceiling sending a ripple across the surface, a little more sloshing over the side and onto his tile.

He made a sound, low in the back of his throat, that was meant to be, “Oh, God.”

He backed away, feeling sick, wanting to throw up — he couldn't reach the toilet, couldn't get to it, the bucket was between him and the toilet and he wouldn't be able to pass it without slipping in it —

He backed out of the room, slammed the door, felt the coffee rising up his throat, and just got to his kitchen sink in time to let it go. He held his head over the sink a while longer, dizzy and disgusted with himself, his breath coming in sobs, and then he forced himself to rinse off the dishes he'd left in the sink, turning the water as hot as he could, running the garbage disposal to get rid of the last signs of his weakness.

He lit himself another cigarette, and went outside, pacing up and down the length of his balcony with it like a caged animal. Waiting until his head cleared.

When it finally had, he grabbed the tall garbage can in his kitchen, and pulled the plastic lining out of it, and left the garbage bag lying on the floor. He went back to brave the bathroom.

Well, he thought, looking at it, it didn't get any better by itself.

He carefully lifted the full wastebasket from under the constant dripping, trying to keep it level and grunting with the effort, trying not to spill any and managing to do so just the same, a splash of blood adding to the mess on the floor. He tipped the basket up, emptying it into the toilet. The smell nearly made him vomit again, but he had nothing left to give.

He went into the kitchen and pulled his long-neglected mop out of the closet, and went back into the bathroom with bleach and baking soda and Comet cleanser and every cleaning agent he could find, and attacked the bathroom floor with it until it looked less like someone had been murdered here, and then put the garbage can where the wastebasket had been. It started to catch the blood.

Stephen was frustrated and exhausted. This wasn't fair. This wasn't his problem. Someone should already know about this. Someone should have reported it. Someone should be taking care of it. What was he paying rent on this damn place for? He had a busy schedule. He shouldn't have to be taking care of this, he shouldn't have to tell them to do their damn jobs —

(And if he did tell them, what would they say? Can you check again, Mr. Forester? Are you sure? What makes you think it's blood, Mr. Forester?)

It was still early, but he went to bed then all the same, leaving the radio on, a habit he hadn't indulged since college, pop songs cheerful and sparkling and seeping into his fading awareness, drowning out the steady dripping sound from the next room.

+   +   +  

The next morning he shaved, no mirror, over the kitchen sink. Tonight, he thought, if it hasn't been taken care of by tonight, I'll call someone.

He got through his day methodically and mechanically, putting off writing his editorial yet again, finding all the simple and trivial tasks he'd been avoiding and working his way through them so he wouldn't have to think about anything.

If his co-workers noticed that he seemed nervous and edgy, they didn't say anything to him. But then, they didn't say much of anything to him at all.

At work, in the bathroom, he was seated on a toilet when he heard dripping.

At first, he was convinced he'd imagined it, but he kept his listening, straining his ears, his eyes widening, at some level absurdly relieved —

(There isn't really any blood coming out of your ceiling at home — you're just hallucinating, that's all, you're just going mad that's all)

But when he was sure he heard it, he struggled to get his pants back up and threw back the bolt on the stall door, edging nervously out into the room, staring at the ceiling, then looking down at the floor, looking for the pool of blood.

But there wasn't one. There was just a dripping faucet. Someone hadn't turned off the sink properly. That was all.

He lunged for the faucet, his hand closing white-knuckled around the handle, and he wrenched it shut, so quickly and so forcefully that he hurt his hand. But he still wasn't able to let go of the handle. He just held on to it tightly, reassuring himself with the sudden quiet, gripping the cold edge of the sink with his other hand and leaning heavily against it, trying to breathe calmly and normally.

I'm really letting this get to me, he thought. I'm really starting to lose it. I've got to do something.

+   +   +  

He got home that evening, stepped onto the elevator, and the man who stepped in behind him pressed the button for the floor just ahove Stephen's.

Stephen stared at him for a long moment, trying to keep the expression on his face neutral, but wondering the whole time; is this him? Is this the man who lives right above me? Is this whose apartment is leaking blood into mine?

The man stared back at him; he was small and dark, much like Stephen, but expression, his features, were tight and pinched and weasel-like, and he looked back at Stephen just as suspiciously.

Maybe. Maybe this is him. This looks like a man who might have a dead body in his apartment.

Or several. The thought startled him, but it actually made sense. How much blood could there be in one body, anyway? How many bodies would it take to get so much constant dripping blood?

Stephen realized he was actually about to ask the man — how many bodies do you have up there? — but he was startled out of it, thank God, at the last minute, saved by the bell, the chime of the elevator announcing his floor.

He got off and went home, nervously anticipating the sound of footsteps just overhead any minute.

He went inside, checked the bathroom, and saw that this still hadn't been fixed. Typical. Just fucking typical.

He went to the phone, flipped open the Rolodex to his apartment manager's number, and got ready to give the man a piece of his mind. He reached for the phone and held the handset up to his ear, and his other hand reached for the number pad and just hovered there, frozen by indecision.

What was he going to say, exactly?

(When did you first notice the blood, Mr. Forester? Yesterday morning? As early as that? And why didn't you saying anything, Mr. Forester? Why didn't you say anything until now? Do you have something you're hiding?)

Would he be able to answer so damn many questions? Would he even have time? And he wouldn't be able to just finish it with a call to the apartment manager, oh, no, it wouldn't be as simple as just saying, “Look, there's blood in my bathroom, take care of it, please.” There would be police. He'd have to talk to the police. And to detectives. And, oh, God, he just realized, there would be press. They'd hear about this and then he'd have to talk to reporters, too, and no one would leave him alone and no one would realize that this wasn't his fault and that this wasn't anything to do with him and that he was a busy very busy man and could they please just leave him alone? Couldn't they just take care of this and leave him the hell alone?

He realized, after a moment, that he was almost hyperventilating — that wouldn't do, that wouldn't do at all — and that he didn't hear a dial tone any more, just the calm recorded voice of the operator, “If you wish to make a call, please hang up and try — ”

He hung up, but he didn't try again.

He just went into the bathroom, emptied the day's accumulation of blood into the toilet — it wasn't so bad this time, it didn't make him want to be sick, he could almost get used to this — and put the garbage can back to its now usual place.

He stepped out of the bathroom, and closed the door, quietly determined now; now he had a plan of action. He knew what he would do. He would ignore this problem until it went away.

He didn't feel like going to bed early again tonight, so he went out to dinner instead.

+   +   +  

He got up the next morning, bathed himself at the kitchen sink with a handful of dish soap and a few paper towels, and went to work and wrote one of the best damn editorials he'd ever done. He threw himself into it, glad of the distraction. He couldn't remember later that day just what, exactly, it had been about, even as other people were complimenting him on it, but it didn't matter. It only mattered that he was working again.

He went home that night, and the same man got on his elevator again. This time, Stephen didn't press the button for eighteen, his own floor; he just pressed the button for nineteen. The man reached for the nineteen button, but faltered, surprised, when he saw it already lit, and shot a furtive look at Stephen, his hand dropping uselessly back to his side.

Look how nervous he is, Stephen thought. Look how guilty he looks. These two thoughts shoved aside all other thoughts, all other thoughts of caution — is this safe? What are you doing?

He followed the man off the elevator, keeping a few careful, deliberately casual paces behind him, trying not to look like he was following him. The man headed to his apartment and let himself in, fumbling with the keys.

Stephen kept walking past him, trying to look like he had some other business on this floor, but he noted the apartment number as he went by. 1906. Directly above his own, 1806. He knew it. He could tell. He'd scented him out.

He looked back at the man as he walked by, and the man looked up at him. Stephen smiled, nodded, as if to say: I see you. I know you. I've got you in my eye, now.

The man jerked his apartment door open, darted inside, and slammed it behind him.

Now alone, Stephen doubled back down the corridor to the elevator, hurrying past the slammed door, his heart slamming just as loud in his chest. The silenced cautious voices in his head were now making themselves heard. That was stupid, they screamed. He's seen you he knows what you look like he knows what floor you live on he knows you suspect him!

He took the elevator, bolted down the hall to his apartment, opened the door, and threw himself inside, panting, hoping he'd feel safe in here, but all he could do was hear the dripping and know he wasn't safe at all. That he was next, that his blood would soon be dripping through his own ceiling.

He closed the door and sank back against it, sliding down to the floor, shaking, letting himself panic for a minute. Why hadn't somebody done something, dammit? Why hadn't someone taken care of this?

He shuddered and shook there for a long time, drawing long uneasy breaths, and eventually fell asleep there, curled up on his side on the floor just over his threshold.

+   +   +  

He woke up the next morning, stiff and sore and with a splitting headache, and decided he wasn't going to work.

It took him the whole day, but he finally found a pawn shop that would take a little extra money to sell him a handgun immediately, illegally, no waiting period.

He headed home with it, the weight of it in the pocket of his wool coat comfortable and terrifying.

If no one was going to take care of this, he'd just have to do it himself.

He headed up to the nineteenth floor, to room 1906, and sat down on the floor outside the door to wait for the man to come home.

He came home, a little later than usual — Stephen had grown impatient and uneasy — carrying a couple bags of groceries in his arms, noticing Stephen sitting there, and slowing down to a stop before he even reached his door.

“Uhhh . . . ” He looked at Stephen, shifting one of the bags uncomfortably to the other hand so he could get his keys. “Can I . . . help you?”

“Yes, I think so.” Stephen hoped his voice sounded cool and collected, not as strained as it did to his own ears. “Show me.”

“Show you — ?”

Stephen stood up, dusted himself off, and pointed to the apartment door. “Inside.”

“In . . . ” The man swallowed, licked his lips. “Inside?”

“I need proof,” Stephen explained. “No one's taking care of this. I have to do it myself, you see. No one's done anything. I was going to call the manager, but — you show me. Inside.”

The man looked at Stephen as if that hadn't made sense, and that was when Stephen knew the man was crazy.

“No,” he said. “You can't come in. You just — no. You can't.”

Stephen pulled the gun from his pocket, and both men stared at it for a moment. Each of them feeling around the edges of the moment, trying to see how it had changed.

The grocery bags slipped and fell from the man's arms, and neither of them noticed.

“Inside,” Stephen said again, and this time the man reached for the door and unlocked it.

He started to let Stephen follow him inside, but at the last moment he panicked, tried to slam the door on Stephen, leaned his weight against the door and tried to force him out of the apartment.

Stephen shoved back, and they were shouting at each other, screaming, and Stephen forced his gun hand forward, through the opening, finger tightening almost accidentally on the trigger, and the gun kicked back against his hand and the man fell away from the door, screaming face erased, a cloud of blood in its place.

Stephen shoved and kept shoving — the door was blocked by the man's fallen body — but he eventually cracked it open wide enough to pass through, and stepped over the man.

Everywhere. The smell of blood was everywhere. The bodies must be in the bathroom. Stephen had taken care of this all by himself thank you very much and he had found the bodies and caught the murderer and killed him —

He turned, looked back at the man lying on the floor, and, wanting to be certain he was dead, fired four more bullets into his body.

The apartment was familiar, same layout as his own, so he headed right for the bathroom. Something odd — there were towels and garbage bags forced right up against the door, tucked under it. He ignored them and opened the door —

And the flood of blood they'd kept back came spilling out into the hall.

There must have been a couple of inches of blood just standing on the floor in here, dammed up and ignored —

But there were no bodies. Just the sound of dripping.

Stephen looked up. There was blood coming from this ceiling as well. Wherever it originated, it wasn't here — it had just dripped down, soaked its way through the floor, fell into his home. It was coming from the twentieth floor. Or the twenty-first? Or the twenty-second? Or higher?

He looked down at his feet, watched the blood seep into the carpet, pool around his feet. He sat down heavily, in the middle of the floor, leaning against a wall.

His headache was leaving him. He felt lightheaded and lighthearted. Somebody must have heard his gunfire. Somebody would say something to someone. Someone would take care of this, someone would do their job and come and find this and take care of it all.

It wasn't his problem any more.