For the second time, curiosity had overcome his usual well-reasoned caution. Louis ventured beyond the unmarked door on the ground floor, that —to the extent of his knowledge— he had never seen anyone disturbed, to be met by a narrow stairwell swallowed, not two steps inward, by an impermeable gloom. He had turned back on the first occasion, but this time the pale beam of his flashlight illuminated the rusted wrought iron that wound its way into the bowels of the building. He knew not what possessed him to press on so uncharacteristically, having no great personal interest in the disused boiler equipment that proved the only discoveries of any note, but he continued nonetheless, even as the air took on a foul, musty quality.
The scurry of a rat, fleeing from his light, attracted his attention. The thing slipped past a door that hung askew on hinges so corroded they were on the cusp of surrendering their long struggle with gravity. Louis followed with regret, as the air just beyond that threshold became oppressively dank, reeking with moldiness and neglect. As he stood on the verge of retching, the rodent continued its course to whatever warren it would shelter in, escaping the narrow, coned confines of his visibility, before squealing sharply. Louis panned his light forward to see the concrete here was overcome by a black mildew which became more and more dense as he revealed it, a sprawl of wet lichen the color of pitch which glistened under the faint illumination.
The rat was ensnared at the periphery of this infestation, writhing futilely as a sizzling sound emanated. Its fur began to peel away and the sinew beneath wither in rapid decay, as if it were being digested alive.
Aghast, Louis stepped back, pressing into the door inadvertently and shining his light further into the forgotten corridor where it seemed every surface was subsumed by the fungal growth, covered over like a fetid carpet. Amid the expanse of unchecked, rampant mycelium, he discerned with horror a distinctly human silhouette. The figure stood inert and slumped deep within the boundaries consumed by the creeping mold. Remembering the rat, which was by now little more than a macabre heap of dissolved flesh and bone, Louis's mind was filled with visions of the decomposition a man might suffer if he were to come into the same contact, of helplessly floundering as his very being liquefied. He shuddered. Surely, then, whoever this misfortunate soul who had wandered here before him was, they were dead. They had to be. Despite the logical course of action being to flee, to scale the stairs and report all of this to whatever authority would listen, a humanitarian interest compelled him to call out.
"Hello," he said with a trembling voice, expecting no reply from what must be a corpse. A moment passed, long enough to make him feel foolish for speaking. Just as he had calmed himself somewhat and resolved again to depart, a sickening squelch sounded. It moved, drawing nearer without footfalls, appearing as it became more visible to simply flow atop the layer of lichen, making disgustingly sodden noises as it glid.
It was corpselike, misshapenly rendered by rot with white bones peeking through where tendon and tissue had not sloughed off; slick with nearly every human detail dissolved and subsumed by the malignant putrescence. The detail that most arrested Louis's attention was the silver necklace glinting about its neck. It couldn't possibly be… and yet the idea was irresistible, cementing itself in his mind against all rational protest.
"Barbara?"
Louis was a meek man without much romantic success to speak of. At length he had summoned the courage to speak to Barbara, who had worked in the offices of this very same building. After countless callous rejections he had little expectations, but she had proved surprisingly receptive and shone him rare kindness. He'd given her that silver necklace and cherished the smile on her gentle face.
The joy was short-lived, as Barbara had vanished suddenly and without a trace. Everyone had assumed she had uprooted herself for a different city altogether and Louis had carried on, despondent. That necklace dangling on the threadbare remains of this ghoulish creature, could it truly be hers? Even the necrotic cloy of decay could do little to dislodge the certainty that gripped Louis.
"Barbara," he said again. "Oh, Barbara."
A gurgle like a man, or woman, drowned and a subtle tilt of its skull that might have been happenstance were the response he was met with. Louis read recognition in the gesture, every subtlety amounting to more ironclad evidence. Devotion batted away sanity's feeble protests. He'd found her, by God!
Acceptance of identity was one matter, but it invited a litany of new inquiries. What succor could there possibly be for such a condition? Would fetching a doctor serve any purpose? They'd think him mad, he was certain, and worse, the likelihood was that the settled course of action would see Barbara destroyed. Could any outside actor be trust to see her as more than a decrepit horror? He doubted it gravely. They would lack his attachment, his compassion, his capacity to recognize the woman still extant 'neath the bodily ruin.
As he pondered possibilities, a new quality came to his attention. It seemed obvious in retrospect. She was hungry. What sustenance might be found down here in the deep but the passing vermin? Perhaps therein lay the means of restoration, he thought. If he could nurture her evident appetite, would it do anything to revert her condition? The chance seemed slim, but he clung to the tenuous belief. What alternative was there? Regardless, it would provide some measure of relief, he resolved.
Louis returned daily, tossing morsels to Barbara of lunchmeat cuts from a delicatessen. She seemed grateful each visit, if there could be meaning attributed to the grotesque contortions that remained of her face, though perhaps it was nothing more than the hope that informed his interpretation. He learned that the border of the mold formed the boundary of her locomotion. It crept steadily forward by small increments observed upon each new visit, encroaching resolutely upon the building and the margin of separation between Louis and Barbara.
Sliced turkey and ham soon seemed little consolation to offer. An avenue of escalation occurred to him, though it was sickening to consider. His conscience roiled at the prospect, gnawing at his resolve. Mulled over through sleepless nights, grim, desperate determination overtook him.
He began to devote all possible effort to his personal upkeep, dressing for work impeccably and taking pains to preserve his composure even as he continued to dote on Barbara. With his hair combed just so, the flaws of posture eradicated, and every other manner in which he could conceive of to imbue himself with masculinity and handsomeness, he observed a sea change in how the workplace women regarded him. He would smile at the pretty girls who had formerly refused him the time of day and they might appreciate a degree of his predatory intentions, but the complete truth was surely beyond even the fanciful imaginations of fiction writers to grasp, let alone these gossiping trollops who giggled behind cupped palms.
The worst of them, the most vapid and vain of the secretaries, a woman by the name of Marilyn, responded to his advances after appropriate application of charm. Her lips were poisonously crimson, full and sensual, her eyes sharp as daggers yet twinkling with insipid charisma. Louis looked at her, seeing a worthless harlot that no respectable person should come to miss if some misfortune should strike her. And yet, morality reared its head. Doubts mounted, paramount among them the question of if he should, or even could, do this thing that had seemed, as an abstraction, an acceptable and necessary course?
He was not yet fully committed, he told himself, even as he arranged a date with Marilyn to take place at the end of a workday when both of them were filing out of the building. It would be a casual thing, some light conversation across a table at a restaurant uptown. To avert his own design, simply all he had to do was to carry on as he had told her. They could go and have lunch and be happy. Who would even need to know of the grotesque thing that lurked hungering in the darkness that he called Barbara?
Louis hesitated as they passed by that long ignored door in the lobby. It would be equally effortless to leave it alone as to invent some minor excuse to usher Marilyn down