Rating: Violence and corpse gore. Notes follow the story.

tepping into the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of dark blue sky, gleaming between the old boards that covered the window.  There was no detail to the vision.  Not a cloud on the sky, not a tree limb or power line obstructing the view.  Just pure deep blue, if only a narrow sliver of it, viewed for an instant between splintery wood and scraps of tattered canvas.  The sun was near the horizon, judging by the shade of blue, but whether it was sunrise or sunset I could not say.  I did not know which direction this window faced, and I hadn't known the hour of the day for years.

The window had been boarded over the entire time I'd lived in this place, and had once boasted a thick piece of dark brown canvas, studded irregularly by the heavy staples that secured it to the planks.  Then, this room, the guest bathroom, had been shrouded in complete darkness every hour of the day.  No longer.  Time and fingernails and the splattering of various liquids had conspired to rot away the canvas, cold and heat had warped the wood, and the boards sagged with the cruel weight of time, allowing me my view.

The view of the sky, between the boards, was like innocence; lasting a mere flicker, but all the more precious for it.

As I scrubbed my hands under the cold water, scraping away the dried blood and paint, I kept my expression neutral, though my mind raced.  Sky that could be seen could be reached, perhaps.

The mirror before my face was broken in several places.  Slices of it were missing, some of them lying on the top of the medicine cabinet, others fallen to the floor beside the sink.  Blood splattered the grimy surface.  I could still see myself if I tried, if I leaned a foot to the right.  My eyes were vacant, as empty and silver as the fracture that ran down the mirror, dividing my face into uneven halves.

A slight rustling noise from behind me drew my attention back to my hands.  A Flight, I thought.  Come to spy?  I gave no sign of having heard.

The sink drained slowly, and the water had half filled the discolored basin.  It was light pink, testament to the dissolving splatters of red that still covered the backs of my hands.  The fingers and palms were clean though, and that was what mattered.  Was what they demanded.

As I watched the water slowly drain, I heard another sound, this time a soft, wet groan. I knew the source for sure this time. A moment later, as the last dregs of pink water vanished down the rusty pipe, I heard a thump, and another moan.  The thump was a heel on the wooden floor, I'd heard it often enough to know.

Not a heel of a walking man, but the heel of a body being rolled over.  They were always on their sides at first, usually curled up like babes in the womb, but as they started to come through, they would roll over onto their backs, or be rolled over.  When they did, the heel would thump, sometimes.  Not always.

I shook my hands to help them dry.  There was no towel in the room, and even if there had been, it would have been as filthy as my own clothing, and only dirtied my hands in the drying effort.  Not turning around, I walked backwards into the narrow hallway, then turned to my left and walked back into the living room. The stench filled my nose, but it no longer sickened me. I was well past that by now.

Of the Flights, I saw nothing.  They sometimes still bothered to hide from me, as if ashamed.  I was not sure if they were ashamed of themselves, or of being seen by me.  Or both. I liked that.  That they hid.  They weren't so easy for a man to bear seeing.

The body made another groan, as wet as the first had been.  A deep, sucking half-breath, as of a horse slowly pulling its foreleg out of deep mud. The heel thumped again, as a twitch ran down the leg.  The nerves were coming back to life.

I waited, not seeing the corpse coming back to life, not seeing the blood-splattered walls, or the knives driven into the cheap plaster on every side.  Things were as they always were, in this place.  It was better not to notice.

Only a yellowed bulb, swinging slowly in the right corner, provided any light.  The window in this room was still well-covered, and by more than boards.  Someone, possibly me, had filled the windowsill with boards in some forgotten age.  Not just filled, but nailed into place with much more care than had been shown in the bathroom.  Atop this were several layers of canvas, badly ripped.  The blood and blue paint were the real guarantees of darkness though, for so many pints and gallons of them had been splashed around this room and left to dry that any cracks in the wood or rips in the canvas were glued shut.

The sky was never seen from this room, and for all I knew never again would be.

But I had seen it from the bathroom, so I knew it was still out there. Still up there.

Another groan from the body, and I looked down at it for the first time.  It had been a she, some days before.  The Flights had taken care of that, de-sexing the corpse as they had their way.  It was just Meat now, dead these three days, painted blue, half-skinned, half-eaten.  Eaten by them, skinned and painted by me.  By my bare hands.

She had been beautiful.  Once.

Now she was just Meat.

The moans came faster now, one every few minutes.  I waited, steady, calm.  I was good at waiting, by now.  The heel thumped again, bare of shoe, bare of sock, bare of skin.  Bone on wood.  Thump.

As she rattled in another breath, I knew it was time and moved forward.  Beside her was a hook, lying conveniently on the floor.  Placed there, for me. I took it, gripping the  thick handle confidently. The rusty metal felt solid in my hand, dependable.  Bending down, I pressed the jagged point to her chest, just below the sternum.  Best place to hook it, they had taught me.

She gave another moan and a little half cough as the curved metal sunk into her cold flesh and jellied, half-rotten entrails.  A slight whiff of her inner rot puffed out of the parted flesh, but it bothered me no more than the roaches I slept beneath each night.

Sinking the hook in deeply, I tugged to be sure it was well snagged on her breastbone, then pulled as I walked away.  The body dragged along behind me, head back and eyes open, sightless, for now.  Her long hair, what was left of it, trailed along the floor, as I pulled the body after me, down the hallway.  This was one part of the house where the floorboards could be seen beneath the grime and dirt, the muck scraped away by the bodies I pulled.

It was eighteen steps to the left turn, and then nine more to the basement doorway.  The light in the living room was long faded by here, so I counted as I walked.  I knew the distances well, after making this trip so many times. The cellar door was stuck shut, as always, but I shouldered it open, holding my breath.

The stink was a hundred times stronger here, and I waited a moment as the clammy stench washed over me.  The air didn't so much clear as it became air, rather than a stinking fog so thick it was almost liquid.  I was good at waiting.  Beads of condensation rolled down my face, gathered in my beard and eyebrows, a slick, oily feeling on my skin.

I waited.

At last I had to breath or fall over, and I leaned away from the stinking grotto and drew in deeply.  As always, my head reeled, and I leaned against the wall, the hook still gripped firmly in one hand.  Flights tittered as they soared past me, down into the murk.  My eyes stayed tightly shut, for there was light from below, and Flights were not good things for a man to see, especially not as they winged past his nose.

After another moment I could go on, and I descended the stairs, my eyes still closed.  Thirty-six steps down, the seventeenth and twenty-fourth shorter than the others, the ninth creaking badly.  I didn't quite dare step past it on the way down, for there was no railing, and I dragged a heavy load.  I did step on the very edge of it, so when it collapsed I'd land on the tenth step, and not fall through the hole.

It didn't collapse this time, though I felt it sink another quarter of an inch.  Some day, perhaps soon, the ninth step, and perhaps the whole flight, would give way entirely.  The stink and rot down here were too great for wood to last forever in. I wasn't sure if I'd rather die or live in the fall.  Probably live, and hope to stay alive until the Flights gave up the house, so I could die and hope to rot in peace. If I died while the Flights remained, I had no illusions as to my fate.

At the bottom of the stairs I opened my eyes, and looked to the right, down the long cellar.  Meat hung on every wall.  I walked down the center, following the clean streak I had made on my trips through here, dragging the prizes.

There was a clear alcove on the right, about twenty feet along.  I slid the Meat up to the wall, leaning her against it in a sitting position.  One eye closed, the other stayed open while her head lolled over to one shoulder.

In the greenish light I knocked the hook free of her breastbone and removed it, then kicked her over to her side.  Her back exposed, I slid the hook in and made sure it was well-seated in her ribs, before lifting her.

The metal socket was just above my head on the wall, and I grunted a bit as I lifted her up by the hook, and placed the handle into the socket.  It clicked into place and I stepped back, her cold hand trailing along my right side.  She gave another little gasp, and her heel thumped again, this time against the brick wall.  Meat.

Turning back to my right, I kept my eyes on the clean skid down the middle of the floor.  This was not a place to look around in.  Older Meat, some of it still moving, hung from the walls.  Some of the lazier Flights sometimes perched on Meat, eating where they sat.  I'd seen young, brash Flights nestled sleeping in the bellies of fresh Meat, the bodies moving stumped-off arms in futile little circles as they were defiled, and slowly-devoured, from within.

Rest in peace.

The green light glowed from the walls, from some strange fungus. I had no explanation for it, nor did I ask for or want one.  It was something the Flights grew, that was enough for me to know.

I skipped the ninth step on the way up, and shut the door tightly at the top.  The Flights had another way down, a tunnel through a back room I did not enter.

Leaving the basement, I walked back down the stygian hallway, coming slowly towards the light of the living room.  I turned and moved down the hallway, back into the bathroom, to wash my hands again.  I was not permitted to bear the blood or paint of Meat on the palms of my hands.  I had never been told why not.

The sky, through the cracked wood, was a lighter blue now.  I thought I saw a bare limb at the bottom of the fissure.  Dawn then, and winter?  The house was always cool, always dark.  Day and night were almost forgotten, and seasons were no better than distant memories.

How much of that board could I tear loose, I wondered, before the Flights heard and came for me?  I thought about it as I washed my hands, scrubbing again until the rising water was light pink.  I washed my right shoulder, the one the Meat had touched, as I pondered.

The wood was old and rotting.  I was strong, from my years of hauling the meat.  My bedroom was deep inside, with no windows.  There was no escape from there, none from the living room, certainly none from the basement.  All doors out of the house were bricked up, nailed shut, solid as a wall.  One door was opened, but only when fresh Meat was delivered, and that only came at night. I was not permitted to see the delivery, but sometimes I heard, especially when the Meat was awake.  I could remember when the screaming used to upset me.

That door was sealed from the inside, blocked off by thick metal bars.  I did not know how the Flights moved them to let the Meat in.  I did not know who brought them the Meat.

As I left the bathroom, I took another look at the sliver of blue.  It was almost white now, as dawn filled the sky.  Would a Flight notice that, and demand repairs?  They never entered the bathroom, and they hated the light.  Maybe they wouldn't notice.

I thought of the knives in the living room.  There were other tools, hammers, screwdrivers, even a crowbar.  Sometimes the Flights were all gone down to the cellar.  Or sleeping.  Or busy eating.  Or busy with fresh Meat.

As I walked past the living room I went inside and looked around.  I saw no Flights, but the corners were dark, and old furniture, most of it knocked over sideways, loomed in the shadows.  I took my chance anyway.

With a kick the crowbar went skittering into the hallway, sliding towards the bathroom.  With a little bang it vanished into a pile of crumpled, yellowed newspaper, not far from the bathroom door.

I thought there would be fresh Meat soon, perhaps in a day or two, as I reckoned them in this eternal tomb.  It was something to think about, as I walked to the inner kitchen and took a raw potato from the barrel full.

Something to think about.

The comment on the page from my initial writing.

The following is a bit of short fiction, written just now, in this spot.  I constantly have ideas for stories, or bits of stories, or interesting scenes, and I used to (years ago) write them down right then, or at least commit the longer ideas to a notes page. I've lost that habit (I almost never went back to the notes to expand them to a story; the ideas were usually very short and specific, and days later, minus that moment of inspiration, they were less-than-inspiring fragments) but I'm trying to get it back.

This short fiction is moody and depressing, and somewhat gory/horrific. If you are in a jovial and quick-reading mood, you probably won't appreciate it all that much.

You have been warned.

I don't have much to add to that now.  I don't remember why I wrote this or what my motivation was.  I was obviously in some sort of rather dreadful mood.  Not necessarily depressed or sad, but certainly a Lovecraftian type of aura was hovering about me.  I made virtually no changes to this arching it; just fixed a few typos and clarified some of the wording from the start.  I don't love the story, but I think it works well enough for what it is. I do not intend to write more of it at some point in the future; the ambiguity of the ending and the unexplained setting are part of the charm.

Some readers disagree on that point, however. Here's a mail from Boidea.

I tried 'Sliver of Sky' It was marginal...mainly gross and I didn't see the point of the trapped man. Why was he trapped? Why was I supposed to care? Why did he do horrible things to serve those creatures? Why are we in Iraq? I read your comments, and thought this was just a cool idea you had that never really developed into a story with a point. You are right; it is good for what it is.

Boidea says he has a degree in genetics, and that horror is not his forte, so I'm going to take a logical leap and say that unexplained weird things aren't either.  I said in my notes that the weirdness is part of the charm, and he is annoyed by the weirdness and unexplained aspects.

As a reader, I am annoyed by that sort of thing also, in some cases.  When it feels cheated, or I really want to know why and how and where, it bothers me not getting that information.  But for this story I couldn't have explained things without making the story 3x longer, and that would have totally changed the scope of things and my approach to it.  And I don't think explanations would have improved it either; it's just a short weird thing set in one place and one time, and if I had 20 pages before the current beginning of the story that related how the guy got there, and 30 pages after the current ending that talked about what more he did and described the world setting and everything else... it would just be longer.  Not better.

And anyway, I'd still have the mystery of the Flights.  How do I explain those in a logical, non-magical world?  Aliens?  Genetic manipulation?

This is just one of those quick little horror tales that the reader has to suspend their disbelief to enjoy, and if you look deeper and demand answers and explanations, you're not going to enjoy it very much.

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