Chapter Text
It began on a normal Friday night, at the weathered kitchen counter where Meg was furiously assembling an ensemble of neon pink frosted cupcakes for the elementary school bake sale, where she worked part time as a teacher’s aide.
Christine sat on their (only) barstool- a rescue from the sidewalk- and supervised, which mostly entailed stealing a fingertip's worth of frosting here and there, and receiving an accompanying swat from Meg's spatula in return.
"First of all, you're basically stealing candy from children. And second, I just really don't like the idea of you clambering around in the dark in these deathtraps,” she scowled as a pink glob fell onto the floor. "Even if you don't get tetanus or fall through the floor, just think of all the creeps and weirdos we see harassing girls on a regular basis in this shitty city, and then imagine being stuck with them in the dark."
Christine couldn't help but smile despite appreciating her friend's concern. Meg had been her very best friend for as long as she could remember, ever since they met in dance class as five-year-olds, and she had always been the sensible voice of reason- the perfect counterweight to Christine's dreamier (as Meg would say, foolhardy) nature.
Thus it came to no surprise that when Christine first took up urban exploration or "urbex" several years ago, Meg had been horrified. It was only after four or five successful trips that she had stopped waiting up for her friend, valiantly fighting sleep in order to stay awake in the living room for Christine's return to verify that she had not, in fact, been murdered or fallen down a rotten set of stairs.
And true, it was a hobby that could be dangerous. The risk of an accident, if you weren't paying close attention (and sometimes even when you were), was high; most of the places Christine explored had been abandoned or condemned for years, with no upkeep or maintenance. And creeps - mostly of the male persuasion - were unfortunately prevalent in every hobby.
But there was just something about stepping foot into what was essentially a giant mausoleum, holding the now deceased dreams and aspirations of businesses and homes, workers and residents, and the city itself within its leaky, stained walls. Experiencing these places solo brought Christine no small degree of peace, both from others but also from the thoughts that swirled around in her head constantly; an empty building didn’t have a care in the world for failed degrees, neglectful ex-boyfriends, departed parents…In these spaces, under the cover of night, she could just be Christine.
"Meg, you know I've been doing urbex solo for a while at this point. I can handle myself, I promise." Christine cautiously darted a fingertip across the counter for another taste of frosting. "And I'll have you know that this isn't any old 'deathtrap'. It's a place of historical significance, which just so happens to be abandoned. A mere twenty years ago, the Charles River Watch Factory was the largest in the region. When it closed, nearly a thousand people lost their jobs- including my dad".
Meg let Christine ramble excitedly on for another minute about watches (“They could put out 4,000 watches a year!”). But eventually, she held up one hand and huffed before wrapping the final tray of cupcakes in saran wrap, securely entombing the delicious cargo within. "Still. Just be careful, ok? And promise not to step on any nails. The last thing you need is tetanus.” Christine had laughed and told Meg she was turning into her (infamously strict and fastidious) mother before heading up to her room in the two-bedroom apartment they shared to assemble the last of her supplies.
But an hour later, parking her car on the edge of the overgrown parking lot and walking up to the hulking monolith itself, she had to admit the factory grounds felt a little creepy (and were undoubtedly filled with nails and other tetanus-carrying scrap). The factory was four cavernous stories tall and had been a booming watch and clock maker some thirty years back; it sprawled across an enormous lot right next to the river. Papa had a stint there for a year or so, after the city symphony orchestra let him go and before he received the same treatment when the factory itself shut down. Christine had been inside exactly once when she was quite little, for some bring your kid to work function, but she remembered very little of the interior (just the selection of jellybeans in a glass dish in the front office).
Unlike most of the other places she'd explored in the past, the Watch Factory wasn't on any top ten lists or urbex blogs. A friend of a friend’s stoner brother had mentioned it to her at a house party a few months back (hearsay from strangers is, coincidentally, the best way to learn new and interesting things). She hadn’t thought of the old place in years. Scouring the internet revealed little, aside from an Op-Ed complaining about yet another historical structure being likely slated for demolition and condo-ification. But eventually, she stumbled upon a single Reddit thread from three or four years ago whose comments were mostly deleted, but it did include a helpful tidbit about an unsecured side door. Christine only hoped that it would still be accessible.
She cautiously approached the side of the building, head on a swivel for any security guards or cameras, but as far as she could tell there were none. Still, to be safe, she had parked her car at the edge of the deserted parking lot under a tree with ample (she hoped) concealment from drooping branches and had worn an oversized black sweatshirt (stolen from her most recent ex) with the hood pulled snugly over her forehead. After half an hour of tromping around the overgrown bushes on the left side of the crumbling brick structure, she finally located the mythical door the all-knowing Redditor had mentioned. The door was partially rusted open and a nearby two by four was sufficient leverage to gently pry it open the rest of the way.
Christine excitedly slipped through the gap in the door, quietly closing it behind her with just a tiny gap left ajar. She found herself in some kind of administrative office, which was filled with ancient computer towers, rusted filing cabinets, and moldering papers. It was odd but not unusual to find large amounts of equipment, furniture, and other ephemera left abandoned in these kinds of places- Christine's strangest find to date was a life-sized clown doll left at the front desk of a shuttered motel, whose cold, dead eyes followed her across the room.
She made her way through the cluttered mess of office equipment and stagnant puddles towards a door she assumed led to the main entryway. She cautiously poked her head out to find an enormous room with high ceilings and a handful of rusty stairs leading up to what she assumed were workrooms, judging from the old photos she'd Googled. Christine closed her eyes and stood perfectly still, listening to the silence punctuated only by the steady drip of water. This was definitely one of her favorite parts of exploring these sorts of places. Absent of any humming machinery chiming phones, and busy traffic, she could almost imagine herself in some alternate reality where she was the only person left on the planet.
Christine quietly set down her pack and pulled out her camera to take a few photos of the dizzyingly high ceilings and the other items of interest throughout the area. She snapped a few shots each of a large hole in the roof responsible for the puddles she had to carefully sidestep, a bird’s nest perched precariously atop a banister, and a sagging artificial plant.
She had just aimed her camera towards a decidedly vintage television set resting on a stool in the farthest corner of the room when something moved at the edge of the viewfinder. Christine gasped as an enormous black shadow separated itself from the darkened wall, her camera falling to her chest secured only by its strap.
She stepped backwards towards the door she had entered from, mentally calculating how long it would take her to scamper out the side door and scurry back to her car. The shade moved towards her and slowly materialized as a very tall, very thin man dressed head to toe in black.
"Please, I was just leaving. I didn't mean to intrude on your, er, business", Christine shakily said as she continued to edge her way backwards. She cringed as the man continued to advance, noiselessly matching her step for step. Broken glass crunched under her boots, and with a jolt of terror she realized that he was wearing a black mask that covered his entire face. She had seen enough episodes of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ to know this did not bode well.
Finally, she reached the door, the knob brushing against her outstretched hands behind her back. But before she could wrench it open the man suddenly rushed upon her, grabbing her arm and boxing her in against the nearby wall with terrifying strength. Christine could hear nothing but the pounding of her heart in her ears and her own ragged breathing.
At 5'7, Christine was not especially short, but she could see this man was easily a foot taller as he towered over her. He pulled down her hood with a surprisingly gentle touch and leaned down to study her face before shaking his head with a grunt.
While he studied her, she studied him back. Black linen shirt, black jacket and pants, black boots, and black kid leather gloves, topped off by a head of thick raven black hair and of course the black mask, which looked to be made of some glossy, porcelain-like material. Craning her neck to look up at him, she could barely make out his fine, dark eyelashes – striking even with the rest of his face covered - through the darkness of the mask's eye holes, and peering out beneath them, a set of impossibly yellow eyes.
Those were the only features she could ascertain through the intimidating black mask.
The man sighed and relaxed his grip on her elbow. "A woman." He paused, staring down at her. Almost as an aside, he murmured, "I thought you were someone else. A very meddling someone else.” His eyes, panther-like, swept across her face before settling somewhere in the distance over her shoulder.
"Um. No, just me. " Christine couldn't think of what to say at such a bizarre meeting. He huffed and took several steps backwards. "What are you doing here? Wandering around in a place like this, at this time of the night". She could imagine the stranger grinning in a predatory way as he added, "Don't you know what sort of monsters are creeping about?".
Anger replaced a portion of her fear. "Look, mister - er, whatever your name is. I only came here to explore in what is supposed to be an abandoned building. I won’t tell anyone, and I’ll just be on my way, and that’s that, ok?”. She stomped the heel of her boot into the cracked tile floor for emphasis, surprising herself at the resounding echo.
The world’s longest ten seconds passed as Christine waited for him to lunge at her, or pull a gun out of his coat, or something equally true crime-y. Instead, he laughed, the sound echoing pleasantly off the bare walls; as bizarre as the situation was, she couldn’t help but observe that his voice was exceptionally beautiful.
His laughter trailed off, and he looked her in the eyes as if seeing her for the first time before abruptly turning to stalk away from the door, choosing instead to lean on a column in the center of the room. The increased distance made Christine let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in.
Crossing his arms, the man in black laughed again, quieter this time, before asking derisively, “What problems do pretty girls have that they need to go stumbling around places like this?”
“I don’t think it’s any of your business. And what are you doing in a place like this?”, she retorted.
“Don’t change the subject, girl.”
“Don’t call me girl. Ass.”
He laughed again. They passed a few moments in silence, she slyly studying him from afar and he carefully studying a hole in the roof above his head. “Try me,” he said at length, inclining his head back in her direction.
Christine considered whether or not spilling her guts to a stranger – a very strange stranger – was, in fact, an absolutely insane idea. Probably cheaper than therapy at least, she thought. “Honestly…,” she began and trailed off. Starting again, “Honestly, my life is a mess at the moment and I just needed some air. Do you know what it's like to struggle all the way through an art degree only to end up waiting tables, with three roommates? I…” Here she stopped herself- why in the world was she compelled to share all of this with some guy skulking about in an abandoned factory?
"No, I do not,” he deadpanned before narrowing those feline, high beam eyes. He tilted his head before saying with a sudden intense interest, "What sort of art degree?”
She sighed, years of having to defend her life choices in the back of her mind. "Voice. Classical vocal training. Don't laugh ok?" She frowned. "For all the good it did me. I don't even sing anymore." The man in front of her continued to state with an even greater intensity. "And why is that? Your speaking voice is lovely." Color rose to her cheeks at the bizarre, sudden compliment- if that's what it was.
"I just don't. My dad- it was always his dream for me. To perform, you know. He was a dreamer," she said with a fond, sad smile. "When he died, my heart for it died with him."
The unlikely pair stood in silence for a moment. "It would be a great shame, a great disservice to music, to not hone your gift. I would offer… that is, I would suggest…” he cut himself off and began to fidget, eyes blazing with a sudden interest. His hand rose to tentatively touch his face, and, gloved fingers finding only a black shell, quickly returned it to his side.
"I would suggest," he continued, "that you not return to this place." With that helpful tip, he abruptly stalked off into the darkness. Christine's eyes followed him for but a moment until he disappeared back into the shadows at the far end of the room. She stood for a moment in a daze, half expecting him to emerge yet again from the darkness to menace her-or badger her about her musical life choices, which was even stranger, before darting to grab her pack and scuttle back out through the side door from which she had come. Christine didn't take a breath until she had sprinted across the lot and thrown herself into the driver's seat of her car.
--
As the dented sedan roared and rattled its way out of his parking lot at a concerning rate of speed, the faceless man (as he sometimes thought of himself) watched carefully through a window on the second story, tracking the car’s movements until it sped out of sight. In the five years since he had taken up residence, per se, in the watch factory, the number of ‘visitors’ he had encountered was in the single digits. A scream thrown directly into the ear of an erstwhile explorer from across the room, a well-timed rock hurled at the feet of a particularly skittish police officer, and numerous other not-so-boyish pranks (including the infamous incident with the Nerf gun) had been sufficient to dissuade the ever-dwindling number of people interested in the overgrown property.
Satisfied that the area was once again deserted, he removed the mask from his face, cautiously angling himself away from his reflection in the window. He cringed as the cool evening air hit the aggravated, raw skin of his face and made his way down the main staircase, and down again into the basement. But despite the familiar stinging pain, he could not stop thinking on the evening’s strange encounter. How and why this girl ended up here, of all places, was unclear. But she hadn’t run, not even after seeing the mask. And while that may have spoken to a lack of common sense, it was nonetheless…interesting.