The Thing in the Wall.

'Where's Nelson?' I ask, looking around. It is four, and I have to leave in thirty seconds.

'He's gone to the Storage Room', says Erica, the new girl. I have got to GO. I have no time to wait for Nelson to do something I asked him to do three days ago.

This is not making me happy. I go to the elevator and I ride it ten floors down to the basement level. Mainly old paper records here. The lights are off. I switch them on and begin to walk down the corridor of shelves with boxes filled with files.

'Nelson. NELSON!' I'm shouting at him, hoping that the need for volume will overwhelm the slight tone of anger I feel at having to come all the way down. Nelson is not a bad guy. I like his personality. Personality does not get work done. Looking for the Jacobson files was something that needed to be done about a half-year ago. Nelson decided that this week was the perfect week, since we had gone though every other aspect of the case.

So he decided to do it today. With five minutes to go.

THUMP!

What was that?

'Nelson!'

He's not answering me, and I notice that I'm coated in a cold sweat. He's fallen. I know it.

Just what I need. To sit here with an employee with a cracked head, while the new girl tries to remember the number for 9-1-1.

I keep moving along the corridor of shelves, and I notice a greenish light coming from the back recesses of the stacks of shelves.

'Nelson!, Nelson are you alright?' I can't help but notice the slightly timid tone in my voice. What am I afraid of? I've been down here millions of times.

The light gets brighter, and I look to see where it is coming from. I am assailed with a stench that nearly sends me staggering back on my feet.

I continue to the end of the corridor and look right and then left.

To the left is something that defies explanation. Nelson's lower half, his feet and legs are protruding from what looks like neon green paint on the wall. Glowing Neon-Green paint that is oozing a sickly smell of death. He's being pulled in, one lurching shift at a time. I lean down to grab his feet. Someone is saying 'Nelsonnelsonelsonelsonelson'. Then I realize it's me.

A long thin tendril of shiny black reached through the green from the other side. It whips against my face, and I feel a stinging there and I know that I'm screaming and crying. There is a warmth in my groin. Many more tendrils come through the green goo each curling against the cement walls.

From the midst of the goo I see a round bulbous shape protruding. The goo does not stick to it, but falls on poor Nelson's pants. The center of the bulb splits like an old person's toothless mouth and I see within it a row of silver teeth. Or maybe they are fingers. I think they're wiggling. One tendril has wrapped itself around my neck and I feel myself pulled in. I'm not able to panic, All I feel is impending death, my heart beating like a hammer in my chest. Oh, God. Ellen will miss me. She won't understand. I was going to ask her to marry me tonight.

Oh God.

The stench...