Michael had started to wonder if 'Dahmeresque' was a term that had been coined yet, and whether he'd even survive to find out. The first sign he'd made a bad decision was when Samantha—or Sam, as she insisted upon being called—mentioned that she lived right around the corner. Mike's usual dive bar was in a part of town you came to for the cheap alcohol and just about nothing else. Decrepit brick-and-asbestos project housing loomed above the reach of the streetlights, interspersed by concrete strip malls hosting a variety of shady joints like the one he visited to drink away the weeknights. The both of them several shots deep, Sam had insisted he tag along into one of those monolithic housing stacks, lured by the promise of Netflix and something more lurking behind her owlish and mascara-stained eyes. Just riding in the beaten, rusted coffin that passed for an elevator in Sam's building had put his tipsy mind in gear for a profound sense of unease.
Her willowy, grime-stained fingernails picked at the hems and loose threads of an olive trenchcoat that sat heavy on her emaciated shoulders; messy and fraying black locks obscured the precise direction of her gaze. What would have been an awkward silence between the two was filled by the elevator's strange creaks and scrapes. Remaining upright took enough of Michael's concentration that he didn't notice her sizing him up like a piece of meat. What was the right suggestion for Netflix? A movie? A TV show? Something innocent, or something like a horror movie? A look up at the dying fluorescent light in the elevator's ceiling gave Michael the sense he might already be in a horror movie.
Any further machinating was cut short by the doors grinding open, revealing a hallway long enough to give Mike a brief sense of vertigo. Identical wooden doors ran in spaced intervals along a path of tiled linoleum; most of it stained and beaten from unknowable stresses spread across the decades. Sam strode ahead of him, hunched over a few degrees amidst the search for her keys.
"C'mon, it's this one up on the right," she mumbled. Picking out her smoke-scratched voice from under the buzz of the cold lights above was a herculean effort for Michael's intoxicated mind.
All the same, the message made it through, and he stumbled in line behind her. True to her vague words, the walk was short. Sam stopped in front of a wooden door bearing nothing more than the brass numbers '1208' on it. Mike struggled to halt his stumbling steps, avoiding a collision with her paper-thin frame by a mere two paces. The sounds of fingers picking across a handful of metal filled the stale air, until there came the heavy slump of a deadbolt's deference, and Sam turned the door's faded chrome handle. A dull crack preluded the groaning of ancient hinges; whatever lay within Sam's apartment invisible in the darkness.
"After you, Mike."
Doing everything in his power to keep the creeps from showing on his face, Michael made a cool nod and strode forth into the void. His weathered tennis shoes met more tiled flooring, revealed to be a minuscule entryway when Sam flipped the lights on. Before he could take in more of the apartment, the door shut with a hasty clunk and drew his attention backward. Sam threw the deadbolt and turned to face him, shoulders at rest against the wood and her arms crossed. At some point she'd shaken the disheveled, inky strands of hair away from her face so the full force of her wide-eyed stare could burn into Mike. Frozen, his drunk brain reached for some idle quip to cut the tension.
"Ready to Netflix and chill?" he asked, concentrating on his words as best he could. The cherry on top was a crooked smile that took a good deal of effort.
Sam mirrored his expression in turn, though her smile was far more wolfish. "I lied, I don't have Netflix. Now take off your shoes. We're gonna play Silent Hill 2 on Benadryl."
"What?" In an instant, Mike's genial expression collapsed into one of total confusion. "The fuck does that mean? Are you gonna kill me?"
"No, dumbass, it's a videogame. And drugs to make it better. Now take off your shoes." She motioned with a nod of her head towards his feet.
Grinding his teeth in a mixture of fear and indignation, he did as he was told. The tile of the entryway was cold enough to bite through the threadbare socks that covered his feet. Come to think of it, the whole place was freezing.
"Why is it so cold in here?" he complained aloud.
Sam stopped removing her stained boots to shoot him a cryptic glance. "I fuck with the utility meters. Go sit by the TV."
Not ready to risk any further questions, Mike turned around and canvassed the apartment for where he was supposed to go. The living space reflected its owner well; musty and neglected carpet underscored the dusty and worn furniture, surrounded by a circus of clutter ranging from discarded drink cans to faded DVD cases and crumpled socks. At the center of the common area there rested a massive and dormant CRT television atop a media cabinet made from some sort of cheap particleboard. Next to it sat a coffee table littered with empty plastic prescription bottles, alongside an old PlayStation 2 connected to the console ports below the screen. Michael sat himself down on the mildew-stained sofa in front of it all, sinking into lumpy cushions and feeling the springs beneath strain against his weight. He watched Sam finish discarding her footwear in the entryway, before slinking off into another room. Shortly thereafter, muffled bangs and scrapes echoed through the thin walls, giving Michael little reason to relax his apprehension.
Sam reappeared in seconds, carrying a single bottle of pills in hand. Her coat was gone, leaving her thinner form draped in only an oversized concert shirt promoting some band Michael barely recognized. Taking a seat next to him on the couch, Sam popped open the benadryl bottle and began counting out pills onto the coffee table.