a place of fears

This is one of my older stories that i'm trying to edit and improve, so I thought it would be interesting to get your ideas and feedback. Please tell me what you thought of it, let me know what you think i could do differently, or even not all. Everything is appreciated but please be constructive. Thanks

Standing amongst unfamiliar shadows I couldn’t shake the feeling that some terrible truth lay in wait for me. I clicked on the torch and scanned the room. It’s pathetically low beam barely touched the walls as the darkness surrounding me frantically scattered and rearranged itself, trying to protect whatever secrets remained there.

Something changed the moment that I entered this place. A calm suddenly descended, but it wasn’t just a lull in the raging storm overhead, it felt as if I had crossed over some unseen threshold, that the world outside had somehow shifted out of place, and would never be the same again.

I stood in a corner of the large, mostly, empty room, scattered throughout it were the rusting carcasses of heavy machinery. Sticking haphazardly out of the broken and cracked concrete they reminded me of toppled tombstones at the necropolis. I always wondered why people felt the urge to vandalise headstones, it seemed so pointless trying to pick a fight with the dead. Maybe it was just their way of dealing with something they couldn‘t control. Inside the air stank of dampness, urine and neglect, which was only alleviated by a cool midnight breeze, that made it’s way through gaps in the crumbling walls. On either side of me there were corridors, branching off, reaching deeper into the darkness. I needed to pick one and follow it until I found what I came for. My heartbeat started to quicken, a shiver pulsed through my muscles. Suddenly I was nervous at the thought of being here and the answers that were waiting.

As I followed the faint light ahead of me, I wondered if Ellen would still be awake when I got back. Still curled up on the sofa watching late night repeats of those awful programmes of people confessing their worst sins on live television. Personally those kind of shows turn my stomach, I’ve got enough issues of my own without worrying about anyone else. Ellen insists that they help her put things into perspective, help her realise that she’s isn’t the only screw up in the world. I don’t buy it, she gets off on other peoples misery just like everybody else, which is what must have attracted her to me in the first place.

We met nearly a month after my “episode“ by then everything had already fallen apart. My days were spent getting drunk and trying to stay numb from something. Something I couldn’t, or wouldn’t remember, and by night I haunted the cramped, dingy corridors of my apartment building. Wandering the dark streets and slowly but surely sinking deeper into oblivion.

She was looking for her runaway daughter. Hopelessly scouring the city for any scraps of information. Passing out photos, asking questions and seeing her daughter around every corner. By the time we met I think she’d all but given up on finding her, but had to see it through to the end, what ever it was.

Turning the corner I could hear the low hum of an electric generator. Three floor standing floodlights were placed in a circle at the far end of the room. I faltered for a second, this was where she had been brought to die, palms sweaty and heart pounding I took a step closer.

The first night I spent with Ellen was the day after we met. Not a night of sordid lust fuelled passion. It was something very different. She had found me lying in the gutter, drunk and angry as usual, I remember her helping me up. Taking me to her room, she cleaned me up, sat me down and we began to talk. In the dim lamplight she looked younger that I first remembered, her eyes were piercing and some of the youthful defiance remained in them. They reminded of the young girl in the photo she had handed to me in the damp corridor of my apartment building. The girl in the photo was the reason I had ended up lying in the gutter.

I took the picture from my pocket and unfolded it, the image already badly creased from the countless times before. It had became a ritual for me, or more an obsession, staring into those eyes. Even from the blurry photocopied picture I could recognise her, but from where? I don’t remember ever meeting her. Memories gathered within my brain like the clouds of a gathering storm, but as always, faded before I could see them. Folding the picture I placed it back into my pocket, tonight, one way or another, my suspicions would be laid to rest.

Ever since my “episode” things had fallen apart. They told me what had happened and why. Told me that it wasn’t as rare as we might think, that in this day and age of increased stress and workplace pressure. The reported “fugue” incidents were increasing. When they first explained it, it meant nothing to me, it wasn’t an answer, it didn’t help me tell Jemma why I hadn’t been there when she miscarried. The doctor was young, attractive and very polite as she tried to explain in simple terms why my brain had shut down one day on the way to work. She spoke slowly and carefully, making sure I could keep up, with what she was telling me. I couldn’t. I just sat there silent and numb.

What I did understand was that some part of my brain had, had enough. All the pressure both at home, and at work, finally took it’s toll. To protect itself my brain rebooted, wiping clean my whole life up to that point. The next thing I remember was sitting in a coffee shop listening to the song we had played on our wedding day. I phoned Jemma straight away, I couldn’t tell you how I suddenly remembered the number but I did, she was silent for a long time then she started to cry.
Now here I am, standing in a derelict factory in the middle of the night, trying to find the last piece of the puzzle. I had long suspected that something had happened during my “episode” since my return nightmares plagued me. Then there was the sense that something inside of me had changed, as if a door had been opened, only to be slammed shut again. All this led me here, and in some way all of us were connected, me, Ellen and the girl in the picture. Her daughter.
The bright halo of sterile light was dazzling against the darkness. I switched off the ineffectual torch and moved closer.

Her body was long gone, taken away to be inspected and tested, but I could almost picture her lying there surrounded by so much of her own blood.
Dark stains stood out against the dull grey of the concrete floor. Like some kind of diabolical Jackson Pollack framed in white light from the floor lamps.
Long slender arcs of dry blood intertwined into a violent and chaotic pattern. Occasionally, and seemingly at random intervals, there were thick black pools. As if the artist had paused unsure of where his next stroke would land. In other areas there was so much blood it was impossible to see any pattern at all. Streaked and smeared to reveal the desperate struggles of it’s unfortunate donor. Underneath all of it ran the thin angry veins which crisscrossed each other. Still resonant with the ferocity and brutality that it took to create it.

Part of me couldn’t help but appreciate the artistic beauty of it. As I gazed down into the dark hypnotic stains I feared I had been here once before. Like malignant hieroglyphs on a temple wall the blood at my feet was telling something. Something I had tried to forget.

Bile rose in my throat and my head began to spin. As memories misfired across my brain, lighting flashes in the gathering storm. I had found the terrible truth but still the answers escaped me.

Suddenly the spell was broken. I wasn’t alone. After I had kissed her goodbye and closed the door, Ellen got dressed. Somehow she had made it here first and moments before I did found the place where here daughter had been killed. Now she sat just beyond the radius of light, her thin angular face looking towards some distant horizon. Lost somewhere in her past.

I wanted to console her. To wrap my arms around her, squeeze out the pain and tell her it would all be O.K. that and a million other clichés, but all I could do was stand there. A helpless witness to how impenetrable her grief seemed to me.

Ellen slowly raised her eyes towards me, her cheeks streaked with tears. I couldn’t match her gaze and looked back towards the dark stains on the ground. That first night together I had told her everything, laid myself bare and waited to be condemned. Instead she slowly poured another drink, looked straight into my eyes, and told me her own story. How she failed her only daughter and drove her away, and why blamed herself for what had happened.

There was no sympathy, no patronising false empathy, no group hugs or words of empowerment shared between us that night. After we were tired talking, we lay in each others arms and listened to the outside world fade into the darkness. I think then she knew what I suspected all along, and that somehow we were destined to give each other a second chance.
I walked over to Ellen, took her in my arms and we left to watch the sunrise.