The Brick

[Author's Note: This is what happens when you read too much H.P. Lovecraft. At least I didn't use the word "eldritch".]

When I stepped off the bus, I turned left instead of right, and that made all the difference. I always automatically turn to the right, walk to the end of a long block, and then proceed left to my office. I still don’t know why I turned left that day, but I thought I could simply bear right and right again at the next corner and everything would be the same. But I was wrong. Nothing was ever the same again.

It was a short distance to the right-branching street, and a short block to the next right turn. I stopped with a shock.

I looked back at the main avenue I had come from, clogged with cars, trucks, and buses in the usual morning snarl, pedestrians of all sorts criss-crossing randomly along the sidewalks. I swiveled warily to face this new street – just one block over from the rush and bustle. There was no one here at all. The street was strangely empty of vehicles, even parked cars, and I was the only living soul in sight.

I began walking the deserted byway. It was refreshing in a way to walk those empty sidewalks, without having to constantly be on guard against colliding with others. It was actually quicker to use this route, I realized. Yet, as I made my way down the long block, I could not stop the rising feeling of disquiet. How could it be that not one other person had found their way to this street? What did they know that I did not?

I reached the end of the block and looked back. The street was still empty. I shook my head, turned back onto the street that led to my solitary office, and continued on my way.

*****

After work that afternoon, I returned the same way that I had come, along that street, curious at what I would find. Not in such a hurry, I noticed my surroundings more. I looked for a street sign, but there was none. I hadn’t noticed that before. A street without a name.

On the left of the street were a fenced parking lot, then a small two-story cinderblock office building, then a wooden storefront, and another fenced parking lot. To my right were a small fenced lot, and a very large red-brick building. In fact, I realized, that brick building took up most of the block on that side. Something about that building caught at my consciousness, but I didn’t grasp exactly what.

None of these buildings appeared to be doing any business for, again, I was alone on the street. No vehicle, parked or moving, and no other person.

Although I was in no hurry, I found myself walking quickly to the end of the street, where I could catch sight of the main avenue again. Jammed with traffic and people as before. I looked back at the street. Empty. No one came there.

It was, I realized, a shunned street.

*****

The next morning I observed these peculiar buildings more closely as I passed. The store was vacant, cobwebs in the windows, dust lying thick on the floor inside. The windows in the small office building were dark and grimy, its entryway carpeted with minute drifts of undisturbed sand. The brick building – the brick building was ancient, dried, and dull. Yet, there was something else about it, something out of place, which I could not put a name to yet.

These places were dead and decaying. Something had sapped the life from them, and from the very street itself. There was something draining about this silent empty street, some deadening force that seemed to lap like a chilling sea at the edge of my consciousness.

*****

On my way home, I perceived for the first time how thoroughly the desolation of the nameless street pervaded. Along the sidewalk on either side there were cracks, just as you can see in any sidewalk in the city. Yet not a single blade of grass grew from any of these cracks. I had never seen such thing before. Always at least one blade of grass poked hopefully upwards toward the sunlight. But this entire street was devoid of green. There was not a weed, tree, or stick along its entire length.

Besides this lack of plant life, another observation insinuated itself in my mind. Birds roamed over every other part of the city, landing where they wanted on buildings or fences. Not here. No pigeon landed here. No bird even flew through the street. No other animal ventured here either. No stray dog. No darting squirrel. Not even an ant. It seemed that every living thing avoided this street, just as people did.

Finally, as I reached the end of the block I felt something or, rather, felt the lack of something. There was no wind in this place. No movement of the air. No breeze to move the dust sifted in the doorways. No breath to disturb the cobwebs in the windows.

In the entire street, I was the only source of movement and life. I began to wonder what had drawn me – and only me – to this deserted and deathly place. What had steered my steps that day – was it only a few days ago?

Before turning back to the living city, I glanced back. For whatever reason, my glance settled on that massive brick building that so overshadowed the entire street. I turned away quickly and left.

*****

The next day my attention was drawn to that brick building. What was there about it that was so disturbing? It was taller than the surroundings, about five stories it seemed, so that it loomed over all. It was also wide, its dominating presence running nearly the length of the street. As I passed, I tried to see how deeply it extended back from the sidewalk. I could just make out its end, and concluded that it must be nearly square.

It was while my gaze was running along its side that I finally noticed , and nearly gasped. I had been looking for a side entrance into the brick building. There was none, which was not so unusual, I rationalized to myself. But I then looked automatically for the front entrance when I realized: there was no front entrance. In fact, as I swept my eyes along the front and side, I could perceive no door, window, or any other break in the continuous brick wall.

I hurried back to the other end of the building and examined it rapidly. There were no doors or windows along that side either. It had been this anomaly, this aberration that had nagged at my consciousness.

I took a slow step backwards into the empty street and surveyed the building inch by inch, left to right, bottom to top. Row upon row, floor upon floor of blank silent brick.

My mind rebelled at the sight. Who constructed a building with no doors or windows? What purpose could such a building serve?

My gaze fell from the vacant, dull façade of the edifice to the still and lifeless street. The emptiness seemed to emanate from the structure somehow. The silence now had an unnerving edge to it.

I flicked a glance back up at the brick building, and then quickly away again. I walked slowly onwards to the end of the street, trying to keep myself from breaking into a run.

*****

In the afternoon, I crossed to the opposite side of the street from the brick building. As I walked, it moved across the sky to eclipse the day’s weak sunlight, drawing me within its shadow. The silent rows of bricks blurred past. I didn’t look back at it.

When I at last reached the main avenue, an eerie possibility occurred to me. Either that building was as empty and lifeless as the street it overhung, or it was not.

*****

On the bus to work the next morning, we halted briefly beside a small forgotten cemetery. My eyes swept idly over the twisted undergrowth and the dull gray stones, silent and inert. As the bus began moving again, I saw a crypt. I turned my head to examine it until the edge of a building blocked it from my view.

The crypt was of plain white stone, dirty now with the years and the city. Green tears from its copper roof had stained the outer walls. There were no windows. There was no door.

I considered this as I turned back in my seat. I had probably passed that cemetery a thousand times in the past. Why had I only noticed it now?

*****

As I walked onto the nameless street, I scrutinized the brick building with careful consideration. Could this possibly be a resting place itself? A crypt?

It was conceivable – barely conceivable. But what could possibly demand such a vast structure? It could not reasonably contain many – occupants. It would take years to fill such a space. In the middle of a city, people would notice such peculiar activity over the years. Besides, there was no door. There was no space where a door might once have been, then since filled in. You couldn’t have traffic in and out of a building over a period of years without a door.

No, if there was no door, then whatever was inside had been put there once, and only once, then sealed forever within mute brick walls.

Yet, was there a door? That was the question now. All seemed to depend on that. If I could find a door, I could dismiss these wild ravings. From what I had seen of the front and sides, I had assumed that there was none, my mind had made that leap, that assumption. But I didn’t know.

I had nearly reached the end of the block when it occurred to me that I had never seen the hidden back of the building. There could be an entrance there, even more than one entrance, and windows. This could well be an ordinary building, a storage company, say, around which I had woven a fantasy with dread and disturbing implications that had no real basis in fact.

I hesitated about how to proceed. I shrank from investigating the back of the building closely. Still, I wanted to know. I had a craving to know, whatever the truth might be.

I retraced my steps to the near corner of the building. The fence of the parking lot beside it was too close to permit walking along that side. I strode deliberately to the farther corner. A narrow walkway led along its side. I steeled myself, then plunged ahead. Tangles of ancient broken fence snatched at me like blind things as I passed, grabbing at my clothes.

The building was fully as large as I had thought, and it took some time before I reached the back at last. I turned its corner expecting – no, hoping – to see people entering and leaving, climbing ordinary steps to everyday doors, a regular array of windows gleaming in the sun. I stopped and stared, breathing heavily.

The back of the building was utterly blank. Rows of bricks, undisturbed for years, weathered, dull, silent, extended along its face. Something like a sob escaped me.

I made my way back to the street, stunned, and then on to work, slowly, heavily, my mind whirling with possibilities.

*****

It was raining that afternoon. I was in too much of a hurry to examine the brick building closely. I didn’t need to see its looming mass with my eyes. It loomed now in my mind.

A building. Built once. Sealed once. Yet, with what inside?

Constructed to house something. Some thing. Bricked up.

Protected? Hidden? Or trapped? Locked away?

What lay within that building?

*****

The next day was clear and sunny, and that may be why I did finally notice it. Previously, I had perceived the building as a whole of brick, all the same, all identical. Yet now it seemed that this was not so.

As I went by the building, scarcely glimpsing it at all in my passage through that desolate street, my eye was drawn to one particular brick. Even now, I cannot say what drew my attention there. Certainly, its color was no different from hundreds of others. It was the size and shape that bricks are. Yet, something was special about it. Out of the hundred thousand bricks in that mass of building, that one commanded notice.

It was slightly to the right of the center of the building, and about five feet from the ground. As I passed, I turned my head to examine that one brick briefly. There was nothing that made it different, but something made it different.

*****

In a way, I couldn’t wait to return that afternoon to the street I now regarded with dread and foreboding. I walked straight toward the building, prepared to be unable to find that one brick, ready to admit that it was all my imagination. But that did not happen.

I was still fifty feet from the building when I saw it, and knew it was the same one I had noticed that morning. I strode directly to it, an action I now think back on with astonishment. I stood and looked at it. Then I moved my gaze to the brick next to it, and tried to convince myself – a little desperately – that it was as noteworthy as the first. I couldn’t do it. The other brick was ordinary. The first brick was not.

I moved right up to the building, one hand actually touching the wall to steady myself. I stared at the brick. It was only a brick. What was there that was special about it?

Without thinking, I reached my fingers up to touch the brick, and immediately stumbled backward and stared. This could not be. This was not possible.

The brick had trembled.

After a long moment, I stepped forward again, cautiously. I drew my hand near and, with a movement that stretched to infinity, placed my fingers against the brick. Once more I felt a trembling, a minute but undeniable vibration in the brick. I had to will myself to keep touching it.

Then I let myself draw my hand away, and very deliberately touched another brick. Nothing. No vibration. I touched the first brick again. A definite quivering.

It was not a constant vibration, like a motor. Nor was it the kind of throb you feel from the city, the bumping of trucks on the road. Instead, it was like some motion originating from within the building. Movement. Stirring. Shuffling.

There was something alive, or rousing itself to life, within that building.

*****

I was glad for the weekend, for the few days away from that street, that building, that brick. I was able to lose myself in other activities.

Even so, my thoughts would relentlessly return there and turn the matter over and over for my consideration. There was a kind of logical unfolding of the thing within my mind, although the screaming illogic of the thing was beyond reason.

This place had been built long ago, that was clear, yet within the time when red brick was used for construction. Within a hundred years, then. There was something inside the building, or else why would it be built? From the uniformity of its façade, it had been built all at once, without doors or windows. Yet, the thing it housed could not have been monstrous to behold at the time, or there would have been some notice taken of the thing, and of the building. The place would be infamous instead of forgotten. Therefore, whatever the building was constructed around was not something shocking in itself.

Then I remembered that little crypt in the cemetery again. An older structure, certainly, far older than the building. An outrageous idea presented itself. What if the red brick building had been erected around something else? Enclosing another building entirely? That inner structure could be very old, even ancient.

I shook my head. Where had that thought come from? Why would I think that? And yet, I did. In my mind’s eye, I could almost see that inner structure, primeval.

Suppose, then, that it was something disturbing. Why wall it up that way? The answer seemed obvious: because you did not want to tear it down or disturb what was within. What was within? Something dead. Something conquered once and thankfully laid to rest. Hidden. Forgotten. Better to make another building as an outer shell, hiding the original.

The original crypt, my mind amended. A crypt on a gigantic scale, surely. Therefore housing either one gigantic entity or many individuals. Ancient, besides. Unknown. But suspected. Oh yes, suspected. And feared. Perhaps justly so.

So, they built the brick building, fading with time to insignificance. A curiosity on a side street, and nothing else. Businesses opened nearby. People came to that street, and worked, and passed by every day. It was ordinary. It was dormant.

Then something happened. The shadow of the building fell across that street. The businesses died. The people left. Life fled.

And now something else had happened. One person had been called to that street. One person’s footsteps had been guided near the building again. One person had been summoned.

Why? Why me? Why did this stream of thoughts and images cascade unwanted, unstoppable, through my mind?

Why me?

To see that brick. That one brick that was identical to every other brick and yet different, somehow different. Trembling. Shuddering with the motion within. Something awakening. Something emerging from long sleep. Something walled up and meant never to be released.

At that moment, I was seized with a frenzy. I wanted to rush out and take a pickax to that brick, to smash through that façade, to take down that wall. But why? To see? To know?

Or to release?

*****

I did not bring a pickax with me on Monday, but perhaps I should have. I walked up to the brick, to give it one look as I passed and then be on my way. But it had moved, and I nearly cried out.

Its right side was pushed slightly out of line. A sifting of mortar dust lay on the bricks below. Something was pressing that brick out from the inside. I gave it one last horrified glance, then broke and ran down the street.

*****

How slowly that day passed. How many times my mind returned to that brick. How I continually turned myself back to my work with deliberation born of desperation. How I longed to never see that street – and that building – and the brick – again.

Still, when it was time to leave, I knew I had to return there. My mind was no longer my own. Something within that building had already reached out and laid its touch upon me. How else these thoughts, these confused and rambling horrors? How else this compulsion to return? To return where I had no desire to be, ever again. I walked like a condemned man and when I reached the turning to the street, it was with immense reluctance and helpless resignation that I gazed along it.

The brick was lying on the sidewalk before me. I stood staring for a long time, and for a long time all I could do was stare. Finally, I took one unwilling step forward. Then another. Against my will, and yet drawn, drawn as surely as if a wire were fastened around my waist, reeling me slowly in.

My steps brought me irresistibly to where the brick lay. I could see where it had struck and scarred the sidewalk. I stood on its red dust. I looked down at it, disbelieving my senses. I stooped and touched it. It no longer vibrated. I grasped the brick and straightened again.

I looked at the brick in my hand. It was so ordinary. That’s when I heard the sound from beside me. I turned and looked straight through the gap left in the wall, straight through to the interior of the building, at what was waiting within.

I did scream then, and tried to cram the brick back into the hole. With all my desperate strength, I shoved against it, but it was being pushed out again by that hideous something far stronger than I was. Finally, shoved loose, the brick fell from my numb fingers, and I looked up again through the opening.

I ran. I ran toward the avenue, to the city, to safety, to sanity. I looked back in time to see the entire front of the building collapse in a deluge of bricks. A shape, partly hidden in the swirl of mortar dust, was uncoiling and emerging. There would be no escape for us this time.