DECAY

         CHAPTER ONE

THE FORTRESS


         The black Casio watch beeped twice. It was now, exactly 8.30pm. Jacob had been standing outside the door knocking for more than five minutes before he decided that enough was enough. He had had enough. After all he owned the flat, it was his, and he owned it. It was his flat! “Yeah, you! This is my flat!” he thought to himself. He wasn’t going to stand for this shit anymore. He briefly thought about trying boost his unhinged morals about what he was about to do. Jacob scowled as he attempted to contemplate the situation.  He felt angry that he has been put in the position, were he had to justify his convictions about Mr Rhodes. He was angry that the rent was three weeks overdue, he was angry that he’d been going through this exact same routine every month since Mr Rhodes first moved in a year ago. Most of all, Jacob was angry because he was angry!

         “It’s my flat!” he murmured.

         He stepped back, and looked at the door momentarily. The resign on his face was evident, as he reached to his belt and produced the key to the door. Reluctantly he eased the key into the slot, and started to turn it.

         “You, dirty…fucking, dirty fucker!” he exclaimed, as it instantly dawned on him that the lock on the door of the flat, rented by the man that he was about to confront had been changed.

         Jacob laughed briefly. It was the laugh of disbelief, that occurs without you even realising that your even doing it. The kind of laugh that expels from your mouth like a fart from your ass, that has been festering for hours. It was the kind of laugh, that happens in the least funny of any situation and that of which has absolutely no traces of humour. The kind of laugh that is proceeded by ineligible, verbal diarrhoea with no form, or structure erupts from the darkest depths of your mind.

         “You mother fucking, fuck pig, cunting , sodding arse fuck raping, fucking, fuck bastard! THIS IS MY FLAT!” he raged.

         He kicked the door as hard as he could, and simultaneously screamed in agony as a sharp pain ran down the back of his leg. His short fat legs were not used to exertion of this kind, or for that matter, any kind. They could barely shift the 350 pounds of obscene and disgusting obesity that was his body. The door wasn’t even dented.

         “MY FLAT!”

         Again he kicked the door, and again it did not budge.

         “MY FLAT!”

         Another heavy kick, and the door was starting to give. It took him eleven more hard kicks to finally break the lock. The twelfth kick sent the door swinging open violently. As the door slammed against the inside wall, Jacob fell backwards flailing his arms wildly as a swarm of millions upon millions of flies and the repugnant stench of urine, garlic, faeces and rotting food hit him like a lead weight. Jacob coughed up a mixture of vomit and flies that had managed to get into his mouth in a violent projectile eruption across the corridor. Flies covered every inch of Jacob, they crawled through his hair, into his ears and up his nostrils. Jacob’s skin crawled, and his flesh creeped like a piece if rotten meat.
         
         
He covered his mouth with his hand and edged towards the door against the onslaught of the army of bluebottles, coughing and wheezing as he went. Ahead of him was darkness, and stench of unbelievable proportions. He fumbled for the light switch, and as he did his fingers touched cold, wet slime. Then he found it. Click! But no light came on. He took a small step forwards. His heart almost stopped as a series of loud beeps sounded from the end of the corridor. Burglar Alarm? No, cant be! He never even installed one! A loud bang sounded and Jacob went blind. Intense pain surged through Jacobs eye balls, his corneas burned as the hall was illuminated photography lamps, with ultra violet filters pointed towards the door. He panicked, he was blind. All he could see where purple and blue clouds and forming strange images.

         He took a step forward and triggered a series of ultra violet strobe lights that furthered the pain in his eyes. The strobe effect soon stopped and gradually the room became illuminated in a bright ultra violet glow.

         The sight ahead almost brought Jacob to his knees. The walls were covered in large mirrors. On the mirrors, smeared in faeces were giant indecipherable words. Newspapers stacked into tall towers, on the top stood jars of yellow and orange liquids with cloves of garlic making strange pickle mixtures. Hanging from hooks on the ceiling like cobwebs, were a mass of tangled ropes and strings in impossible knots and bows.

         As Jacob entered into the hallway he slipped slightly and lost his footing. He threw his hand out grab the wall to stop himself from falling, and in doing so put his hand straight into a glob of cold, wet faeces. He bit his lip and screwed his face, and made a high pitched whimpering sound.

         “Ahhhh! Jesus fucking wept!” He groaned in disgust. He quickly wiped his hand over one of the piles of old newspapers. Jacob gagged as he felt the every piece of textured shit run in between his fingers and over the palm of his hand. “You better be fucking dead when I find you! Coz if I find you death is gonna seem like a slightly better alternative!”

         Jacob was at the end of his tether. In five minutes he had snapped his ham string, been attacked by an army of flies, puked his guts out, been half blinded and put his hand in cold wet shit. He felt his brain boiling, his chest was tightening and he was starting to wheeze. Until recently Jacob was, and always had been a generally easy going person. He was generous and he was caring. Every month Jacob donated what little money he actually had to charity, which in truth doesn’t necessarily make you a good person, but it made him feel better for doing it anyway. And Jacob was also human, and every man has his limits. He was well respected in the community. And although he put across the persona of a man with a humble and reasonably reserved and passive nature, he like all men hid a darker side and it was starting to show.

         
Jacob’s attention was distracted momentarily by a dripping sound coming from a room at then of the corridor. He glanced briefly before flicking his wrist to remove the remaining excrement that was still on his hand. He sighed in despair as he noticed that some of it had migrated up his sleeve and he had even managed to brush some against his torso. He made his way into a dark room at the end of the corridor. He shut his eyes and turned on the light half expecting to be burned alive by more booby trapped lights.
         
         He opened his eyes, his eyebrows raised and his mouth dropped wide open. On the floor was a large pool of congealed blood, covered in flies and maggots. A small hole in the ceiling was oozing blood, every so often a large bubble would burst and send a small droplet of blood into the pool below.