Plants of The Estate - Part 3 of 4

Whatever had happened, it had blocked the stairwell completely. If that was a body in the mass then whatever it was might be dangerous. This was far more serious than a simple ceiling collapse.

‘We should evacuate the building, right?’ I said to the onlookers. One of the arguing triad was a young Chinese man, thin but in good health, and his eyes were bright. He indicated with a nod that what he was about to say involved the other two arguers, ‘They say there is no alarm for fire.’ He spoke in English for me, ‘His daughter she go off to call in emergency. They argue if we stay or we go.’

More people were coming down the stairs as news spread through the building.

‘I think it is best to get out, right? What would we do if there was a fire?’

‘Fire scaffolding on other side of building!’

‘Oh, yes.’ I said, ‘Thanks, I think we better get moving. I have to go get my friends.’

I had to force my way up through the gathering crowd in the stairwell, no one bothered to ask me what I had seen, and I didn’t stop to explain that they should be evacuating, it was better they ask another local, I thought.

Alice was no longer in my apartment, she had returned to her own and was ineffectually scooping up the debris and slime with a dustpan and shovelling it into a bin. On her hands and knees cleaning she looked like a skeleton in a wet wig wearing a fat man’s cloths, her shoulder blades and hips clearly visible under the draped fabric.

I knelt down beside her, ‘Alice, please stop that now. There is a sort of emergency and we all have to get out of the building.’

She banged out a dustpan load of slime and muddy dust into the bin more forcefully than required and then turned on me, ‘whydid you poke it? Did you know what would happen?’ She emphasized each phrase by hacking the air between us with the dustpan, which splattered me with gloop each time.

‘I didn’t know what…’

‘I warned you not poke it, and what did you do?’

‘I’m sorry, Alice. Can we continue this after we're get out of danger? There is something… err… odd happening in the building. The stairs have been blocked by some sort of dangerous growth; people are starting to panic; the elevators are a death trap on a good day, so we need to take the fire escape to the street while we wait for the fire department to come.’

A sound had been building while I had been speaking. The pipes banging in the walls, which was not an uncommon sound here, but the noise kept growing, travelling through the building, up toward us.  To our horror the walls began to shake as the pipes wave of spasms passed us, kicking up dust and dislodging grit from the open ceiling. A new sound followed the first, this came from the kitchen and the bathroom, it gulped and farted, and then the slime began to bulge up out of the drains, both in the sink and from the floor drain. An even more putrid version of the muck began to fill the toilet bowl.

Looking at Alice, there was no longer any need to convince her, it was time to go. 

We gathered Mrs Chang from her unit on the way past. She had been battling the slime in her rubber gloves and wielding a plunger like a sword.

The fire escape on our floor could only be accessed via a low window at the end a corridor running west. Awe banged on the doors as we moved, and took turned yellowing about the evacuation.  Curious faces appeared in doorways, and some even angry for disturbing them. In the end only a handful of residents had joined us, a young couple who were in my opinion were irritatingly beautiful and small family of four, consisting of a man and woman, and their one son, and one grandmother.

We arrived at the escape window as a chaotic bunch. Grandma would not stop complaining and admonishing her daughter in law. Their young son had to be carried, slowing them down. There was more arguing when the window would not open because the wood had warped. After some small debate, translated by Alice and Mrs Chang to the rest of the group, I took the plunger Mrs Chang still possessed and told everyone to take a few steps back. Grandma pointed and scolded me, but was gently restrained by her son. I tapped the glass a few times to judge its strength, it sounds thin and fragile. I gripped just about the rubber suction cap and used hard wooden handle to punch a small opening in the corner of the window pane. I flipped the plunger round and pushed out the remained glass. Handsome Young Couple Guy took off his pea-coat placed it over frame. He and his girlfriend went first. They disappeared down the ironwork stairs. There were groups of tenants coming down from the floors above; many of them were even hauling possessions with them.

There was more drama unfolding down the corridor behind us. The walls were starting to sweat, pipes were groaning, and suddenly, with great force they burst, destroying sections of the walls. Water continued to spray from the busted pipes. More people on our floor where deciding it was time to leave, so many now I was surprised there had even been this many people here. Some were covered in slime and grey building grime, and some even had injuries.

Alice and I had allowed Mrs Chang to go next, then the family, including grandma, who barked traditional obscenities and cried out in pain. We got grandma through the window where her family began to help her move down the narrow stars.  She was being so slow and difficult she had other escapees were lining up behind her. The stairs were only wide enough for one. The growing crush of scared and impatient people behind the old woman began to bicker.

From our position at the fire exit, those scrappy and belligerent enough managed to pry open a position for themselves found themselves trapped in that slow progression.

 'There is no more room this way…Too many people on the fire escape.’ I waved my arms and motioned to turn around and find another way. I asked Alice to translate for me, but Alice’s eyes were wide and she was daggering her fingernails into my arm. The metal had started to whine. The sad cry built to a crescendo when a two story section of fire escape broke free of the rotten wall, with the screams of terrified people rising and falling like a theme park ride. Then the section was just gone, taking many people along. I couldn’t say how many people had just fallen, nor could I reconcile that I just seen them die. ‘This is really happening,’ I kept repeating the phase to myself.

I pulled Alice out from the mass of people who had piled up at the window to witness the horror show. Some were blank faced, others were slack jawed, cooing frightened flock animals, trying to get a good shot on their video phones, and then others were in tears, howling with shock and horror. Alice was blank.