Never To Sleep, Only To Dream.

I've been called to a high-rise tenement building in a part of town the city budget had all but forgotten. My GPS unit guides me through streets with trash piled high at each dim corner, the street lights above have been shot out. Silhouetted figures move through the darkness. Ahead, under a lone street light a man in a large hooded sweatshirt is met by several people. A little of the street-level meet and greet. The kind of place you don't get or need health insurance. He's got it all. It is 01:23 when I pull into the front parking area of the high-rise and park near a front door. My van is the only vehicle on the entire narrow lot. I mark my time of arrival and fill in some minor details before straightening my tie and stepping out of the van. I look up at the towering structure before me. Story upon dark-windowed story of cinder block-walled apartments, all, I'm sure, in severe states of disrepair. For the first time in my three plus months I am genuinely frightened. My partner is in another part of the city, he will not be joining me this time.

I close the distance between my van and the large metal entrance door in a matter of seconds, a near sprint. The door is painted some odd shade of red, crude letters and messages scrawled and scraped into the paint reveal the gray metal beneath. The glass in the wire pane is shattered in a still life and will probably never see replacement. I breathe deeply and pull the door open. I do not know why I don't carry a gun. I really should.

Inside the stairwell smells of urine, vomit and alcohol. Faintly of cigarettes. Faintly of cooked heroin and crack cocaine. Faintly of death. Strongly of despair. The decedent in question lies on the fifteenth floor. The stair wells are narrow. There is no elevator, this is the only route to and from.

As I climb the stairs and reach each landing I notice this building is completely quiet. It is silent save the sounds of the street below. There are no noises to be heard behind the closed apartment doors. No radios, no television, no conversation, conflict or confrontation. It is only me and the silence. A draft sends a shiver through my body and chills me to my core. Maybe a door was on some floor was opened by someone somewhere. I do not know why I do not carry a gun. I really should carry a gun.

After what seems like an hour of cautious ascent I reach floor fifteen, indicated by the apartment numbers stencil-sprayed on the brown apartment doors. 1501, 1502, 1503 and so on. I am looking for 1512. The hallway is narrow and poorly lit. To my left, filthy windows look out to the street below, to my right a row of apartment doors. Here we are, room 1512, last door on the floor. Between me and the stairwell lie eleven apartment doors and about one hundred fifty feet of distance. I knock irregularly, one rap and pause, then three in close succession. I fear being mistaken for a police officer and being hit by a barrage of jacketed hollowpoints or perhaps a round of double-ought buckshot through the wooden door. There is no answer. I knock again in the same manner. One rap and pause, then three in close succession. There is still no answer. I wait for an entire two minutes and try once again. There is still no answer. The floor is still dead quiet and something is telling me to run, to get out of this place as fast as I can. I take a deep breath of the stale air and walk calmly, slowly toward the stairwell to begin my descent out of here. On the fourteenth floor I glance through one of the windows looking down onto the street and the lot below. Several people have gathered around my vehicle. More are walking slowly toward the entrance door. I am gripped by fear. I do not know what awaits.

The rush to the bottom floors and the exit is maddening. My mind is racing and heart beating so loud I swear I can hear it reverberating off the cinder block walls. I am sweating cold and scared for my safety and my sanity. Sixth floor. Fifth floor. Fourth and third. At the second I can see a crowd gathered around the door. I reach the first floor and there they wait. I do not know what I have done to upset these people, but they look angry and confused as to why I am here, in their territory. A quick scan of the lobby floor produces a broken broom handle with a jagged spear point at one end. If need be I can use this. Use this to what? To stab someone? To jam the point right through their eye into their brain and kill them? Sure. If need be.

Here goes nothing.

I throw my shoulder into the door and push my way into the crowd. They are silent, nobody moves or says a word. My force, expecting to be met with resistance, is so excessive I nearly throw myself to the ground. I stop in the middle of the crowd and they turn to face me. I look around. Wait. I know some of these people. No, I know all of these people. All of them, faces familiar. There is Otanga, Phillip J. There is Nelson, Neil G. I spin around and there is Wayne, Connie L. and fat Ms. Nanda Jenkins as well. These are all faces of people I've picked up. They look upset. Their faces wrought with fear and anger. "Why?" someone utters. "Yes, why?" "Why have you come here?" "What are you doing here?" Others ask. The questions grow to a dull roar, then ever more cacophonous. "Why did you come back?" "You shouldn't be here." "This is OUR place, you need to leave." They begin to tug at my clothing and I see as they draw nearer they, each and every one, is rotting to the bone. Even as they come ever closer skin falls from their bones, their hair falls out of their scalps in gnarled clumps and the smell hits me, a wall of cold putrescence.

I awake in the dark, paralyzed, unable to scream, to breathe, to move. I feel as though I am possessed, not in control of my faculties. In the confused darkness between asleep and awake I find no comfort, the dream is still a reality which waits to pull me back as soon as I close my eyes. I am terrified and screaming at the top of my lungs, though not so much as a whisper passes from my lips. My bed is drenched in sweat and cold. I do not want to be here like this, nor there like that. I do not want this anymore. I did not bargain for this. After a short while I regain control of my body and sit up, feel my face, my neck, my arms. I am hot and slick with sweat and skin oil. Lord have mercy on me.