July 25 - Apartment 2G

He was already out the door, down the hall, and in the elevator by the time she remembered that she needed cash, so she texted him and told him she would drop her bank card down to him. He waited below their apartment in the courtyard as she leaned over the balcony.
"Ready?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
She let go and it sailed down toward him, but a sudden gust of wind blew it onto a second floor balcony.
He stood beneath it for a few seconds, waiting for it to change its mind and jump down to him. When it didn't he went into the lobby and buzzed apartment 2G, but nobody answered.
"Do you think you can just climb up there and grab it?" she asked him on her cell.
"Sure, because I'm Spiderman," he said, but then tried anyway, and managed to hoist himself up onto the balcony after two failed attempts. He picked up the card and put it in his pocket, and climbed over the railing. But just before he started lowering himself back down, he looked in through the sliding glass door, and even through the white curtain he could that the biggest fish tank he'd ever seen in his life was on the floor of apartment 2G's living room.
He stepped back onto the balcony to try to get a better look at it. Pressing his face up against the sliding glass door, he strained his eyes to see through the curtain. The walls of the aquarium were about six feet tall and it took up almost all of the living room. Tropical plants and trees, giant rocks, sunlamps, and serious looking scientific equipment filled the rest of the room.
He pressed his face in closer, trying to see what was in the tank. His face was so close to the door, he was practically kissing it. He blinked and his forehead touched the glass, and a buzzing filled the air.
His cellphone.
"Are you OK? Did you get it?"
He told her that he was OK and that he'd gotten it. She asked him what was taking him so long, and he told her he would tell her later, that he was leaving. He hung up the phone and when he looked back at the door again there was a man in a full body wetsuit and scuba gear on the other side of the door looking back at him. In one hand he had a spear gun. With the other, he slid open the door and motioned for him to come in, and he did.
The room was like a rain forest. Hot, humid, sticky, steamy. The walls were covered with mold and mildew, and it smelled like mud. The man in the wetsuit took the regulator out of his mouth and asked him who he was and what he was doing.
He told the man his name was Larry and then explained why he had climbed onto his balcony. As he did so, a parrot swooped across the room and perched itself on the top edge of the aquarium near where the men were standing. At about the same time, something long and dark swam by and bumped the aquarium before disappearing into the murk.
"This is quite a set up you've got here."
The man didn't reply. He looked back at Larry through his face mask.
"It's like a whole ecosystem."
Still nothing. Larry looked around the room a bit more and then thanked the man for his time and turned around to leave.
"Wait," the man said. "Do you want to see what's in here?" He nodded toward the tank.
"Um."
"It's OK," the man said, and curiosity got the better of Larry. Ten minutes later, he was in a wetsuit and flippers and wearing a face mask with a snorkel. He followed the man awkwardly up a stepladder and onto a platform that overlooked one end of the tank. Then the man lowered himself into the water and so did Larry.
The man swam to the bottom of the tank and pointed out colorful fish, eels, and other creatures to Larry who bobbed at the top of the water with his snorkel. There were a lot of shellfish and plant life at the bottom of the tank. A couple of baby alligators swam by. Several more colorful fish, many quite large. Two turtles the size of wheelbarrows.
Still swimming, the man led Larry out of the room and into the hall. Larry hadn't even noticed that the tank extended beyond the living room. As they swam toward the bedroom at the end of the unlit hall, the water in the aquarium grew darker and cooler.
Larry could see that the bedroom's door frame had been outfitted with a door made of a series of stainless steel bars that extended from the floor to the ceiling. The man unlocked the door and motioned for Larry to swim through before going through himself and closing the door again behind them.
Once inside, the man turned on a flashlight, and dozens of crabs scurried away from them, flinging up silt and sediment in their wake.
The man surfaced. Larry pulled his own face up from the water and removed his snorkel, but treaded water instead of standing. The walls of the room were rocky, and the ceiling appeared to be painted black. The only light in the room came from the man's flashlight, still underwater. Larry shivered in his wetsuit. The air and the water were noticeably colder in the bedroom.
"You ready?"
"For what?"
The man ignored his question.
"Have you ever gone scuba diving?"
"No."
"That's OK. For a situation like this, it should be no big deal. We're only going to be a few feet underwater. If you start to freak out, just stand up and you'll be fine, OK? Here. You can use my extra regulator." He handed it to Larry." Just hold onto my arm and you'll be fine. Go on. Try it out," he said, indicating the regulator.
Larry put it in his mouth.
"Yeah, that's it," the man said. "Just try it out a little right here until you get the hang of it. I know it feels a little different, but trust me. You're gonna want to see this up close."
Larry practiced using the regulator a bit and it felt OK, so they went under together and stayed close as they moved toward the darkest and coldest corner of the room.
The only sound was from their regulators and their bubbles. They reached the far corner of the room where there was a walk-in closet with the door removed. They squeezed together and swam through. Then the man shined the light straight ahead of them and Larry saw it.
It looked human, but it wasn't, at least not completely. Its hands and feet were webbed and its sallow skin was scaled like a fish's or snake's. Thin slits in its chest opened and closed rhythmically. It was about five feet tall and laying down as if asleep. Its eyes and mouth were closed. It had no nose, ears, or hair.
Larry was fixated on the slits on its chest. He looked closer and noticed water getting gently sucked in and then pushed out.
He got closer still. The man shined the light on its face.
It opened its eyes.
Larry took a deep breath from his regulator and tried to swim backwards away from the thing on the floor, but he ran into the man. He felt himself hyperventilating, unable to get enough air. He sucked deeply on his regulator but he felt light-headed and dizzy. He looked over at the man, who pulled Larry's mask off, ripped the regulator out of his mouth, and pushed him down toward the thing at the bottom of the closet. Larry lashed out and grabbed at the man in a panic, but he was too fast. He kicked Larry in the chest and swam out of the closet.
Larry swallowed water and tried to stand up, but the thing on the closet floor wrapped its arms around his legs and pulled him down. The last thing he felt before losing consciousness was the thing's teeth biting him through his wetsuit.
About ten minutes later, Larry's girlfriend received a phone call from Larry's cell phone. The man on the other line introduced himself and then invited her down to apartment 2G to join her boyfriend for a drink and maybe a bite to eat.