Excerpt: Fly Free

“Are you sure this is his home?” Alan pointed an accusing finger at the building. “It looks even more abysmal than the Hell Not So Silent Such Shrieking Shaky Shabby Snuff Shuffle… err… Shuttle Slotted Summer! Err… Snaffle Shack, putting that snot shack in shame.”
“You are the one holding the address,” Daniel said and gazed down at the almost crumpled paper.
“I mean this is not even a home!” Alan shrieked. “This is a mule’s cage.”
But Alan took his steps forward to the stairs. Sparrow was living on the topmost floor. There was no lift. The two of them climbed the staircase with a different sound and smell on each floor: an electronic guitar and some Chinese stir-fry on the ground floor, a humming of a man and pouring shower on the first, a torrent of chatters and smokes on the second…
And then there stood a battered door. It was made of some cheap wood and part of the paint had fallen off. The handle itself looked cheaper and was rusty. There was no doorbell, but a doorbell was already outside the expectation for a poor abysmally meagre apartment.
Alan stepped aside. “You know,” he gestured at the door.
“As if you are going to get HIV from touching it,” Daniel muttered in defiance, but he went forward and rapped a few times clearly. They waited for a minute, and Daniel knocked again.
“I do not think he is in,” Alan said.
“But I just heard a door shutting, from this apartment,” Daniel said. He strained to listen, and then he knocked again. This time, the door creaked open by a fraction, and one dark eye peered out. His eye pupil was so large that the eyeball could have been black overall. His face was a shade darker, but it appeared to be facial hair, whereas the area under his chin seemed paler in comparison. The mouth looked stranger – it protruded out and looked more yellow than pink, and looked harder than softer.
“Are you Sparrow?” Alan asked.
When the boy heard that, he gasped and slammed the door shut without a word. Alan reached to the handle, turned it and gave the door a push. The hinge strained and the wood creaked, but it did not budge. “Damn it!” he cursed and gave it another push. The wood creaked again.
“Alan, you are going to break the door!” Daniel grabbed Alan back by his shoulder. He went closer and shouted, “Sparrow, we just want to talk! We do no harm, whatever harm you fear.”
No response.
“Clearly, your way is not working,” Alan said. “The door would fall apart at the fifth push, I bet five quids.”
“I bet ten quids that Sparrow is going to get scared out his shit by you,” Daniel shot Alan a thousand yard glare.
“Of course, he has already freaked the hell out.”
Daniel ignored Alan and tried to approach the boy again. “I am Daniel, and Rob told us his story.”
No response again.
“The real story,” Daniel pressed. “About the project. Robert told us that. He said we passed his test. I wanted to know more about it, about what happened? Was it supposed to be horrible?”
No response. But the response came before they realised.
“Yes, it is horrible,” the boy, behind the door, said softly. He seemed to be leaning against the door hard.