ACCORDING TO HER LATEST INSTAGRAM post to her 1.2k followers, Lumberyard Café barista and proud Vietnamese ‘fugee’ Chau Ho is recovering from the previous night’s party celebrations marking the end of tenure for her and her ‘roomies’ as live-in-guardians at the Steel’s Lane Health Centre, an abandoned East End maternity hospital in Shadwell.
He has no clue what a live-in-guardian is so he uses Google to learn more. Apparently, for a below average rent anyone can apply to live in deserted, derelict buildings such as schools, offices and hospitals, and help look after them while also keeping squatters at bay. A charming concept that resonates with his aesthetic.
As for Chau, forsaken by the country of her birth and living in a forsaken building, she was made for this collection.
Returning to her Instagram, he watches last night’s video stories.
Chau is filming herself: ‘So the motherfucking length of my rental period has been short but beautiful and now we must leave. Join me and the rest of the Steel’s Lane Maternity crew down at the Hungerford Arms so that we can drink our sorrows and toast a harsh death for the landlord who will take our home, repurpose and gentrify it and sell it to wealthy motherfucking Russian and Chinese investors. Let’s drink and get high, motherfuckers!’
Her leaving party was also filmed as a series of live Instagram stories: Chau laughing and filling her face with cake; Chau popping sneaky pills; Chau and her roomies necking beers and shots in the Hungerford Arms; Chau drunk and singing with ‘her bitches’.
It’s the day after and her roomies have packed up and moved out. Chau has one more night to herself and has posted several sad memes about being hung over and leaving home.
Tedious.
In a dark corner, opposite the old hospital, he shuts down his smartphone and slips it into his backpack. He looks across at the large brown-brick Victorian block, which seems more of a workhouse than a maternity hospital. Chau’s room is next to the large green memorial clock on the first floor. All the lights are out except for hers.
He loosens the nylon chest harness to make it more comfortable, pulls up his hood and covers the bottom half of his face with a black bandana.
She appears at the window and looks out, but doesn’t see him.
He circles to the rear of the building, crosses the old car park and descends a set of worn concrete steps to the basement. Removing his backpack, he peers through the grubby glass of a lead sash window.
It’s too dark to see anything.
From the backpack he removes a torch and shines the beam inside. The room is wide and desolate with peeling green paint on the walls, an ancient ward bed with a stained mattress and a battered steel gurney tipped over onto its side. Hanging from the damp, infested ceiling are the remains of a broken light bulb, a mouth of shard-like transparent teeth open wide and howling a silent scream.
Here is a derelict beauty that only he can appreciate.
The window lock is old and rusty and breaks easily with the screwdriver he retrieves from his bag.
He slides the window up, climbs inside and closes it quietly behind him.
From the backpack he removes the GoPro camera, attaches it to the shoulder mount on his chest harness and switches on the device.
He climbs the stairwell to the ground floor and walks across the reception area, wrapping wire around the handles of the adjoining doors.
He hears the sound of music blast from a speaker. A crashing guitar riff and tapping drum beat echoes throughout the building, shattering the silence.
He shakes the doors, ensuring they are secure, and then follows the sound of the loud gothic punk music coming from Chau’s room on the first floor. His soft black shoes step in line to the funeral-pace bass which begins to gather as a sliding guitar echoes like the scratching of undead fingernails on glass throughout the vast bleak corridor.
He glides down the hallway, melding into the shadows, and through a crack in the door sees Chau’s slender back. She is folding clothes and placing them into an old suitcase.
His heart beats fast in time to the rhythm and guitar riff.
Her neck is pale and soft.
He swallows.
He stands at the entrance and pushes the door gently. It creaks but she seems not to hear.
Chau sings along to the music.
She stiffens suddenly.
He looks across at the dark night outside the window and smiles at his reflection in the glass. He is perfectly framed in the doorway like a twenty-first-century Grim Reaper.
Chau’s head turns slowly to look at him, her face drains of colour and is a picture of abject terror. He glances at the GoPro to ensure it’s filming.
Chau’s scream startles him and she charges at him, kneeing him swiftly in the balls. The pain is like lightning and surges through him. He grunts and stumbles backward as she clambers past him. He grabs her ankle but loses purchase as she kicks back and scrambles down the hallway.
Ignoring the pain he bolts after her, the music drowning her screams.
She runs to the ground floor and predictably to the front doors where she pulls and pulls.
‘There’s no escape, Chau,’ he says, descending the staircase and switching on the GoPro’s light. The narrow beam catches her pretty face, her eyes wide, her cheeks wet with tears.
She begins to batter the doors with her arms as he approaches.
‘Help! Somebody help!’
‘No one is listening, Chau. You live in a forsaken place.’
She trembles and then surprises him by darting away from the doors and nimbly dodging him, scarpering like a frightened rabbit to the rear of building, and the basement.
He hurries after her, the beam of his GoPro slicing through the darkness like a swinging blade. He can hear the creaking sound of steel and Chau’s exertions. He follows the sounds to the room through which he entered the building. Chau has pushed the gurney to the window and stands on top of it trying the push the sash up. She stops when the beam finds her.
She turns to look at him. ‘What do you want from me?’
He watches her, savouring her growing unease.
He doesn’t respond.
Her face pales.
‘Help me!’ she screams.
He removes his backpack, reaches into it and takes out his most recent purchase from the Dark Web.
A Taser gun.
He walks towards her.
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she whimpers.
‘I’ll make it quick.’
She screams as he straightens his arm and fires the pistol.
He watches her body shake uncontrollably as it falls from the gurney to the floor. Within moments, she settles, but still there is the smallest of tremors. He crouches beside her and runs his finger gently across her lips.
‘Poor little rabbit.’
In life, Chau posted filtered celebrity-like photographs for her friends and followers to enjoy. In death, there will be no filters. Chau’s true beauty will be revealed for her 1.2k followers and the rest of the world to enjoy too.