by Ed Kurtz
But that made no sense at all.
He dragged a stool from the kitchen to the hallway and silently observed his roommate for a while. He studied every minute detail of its skinless face and found that the longer he looked at it, the more human it appeared to become. He thought about its other end as well, the side that stuck out from the paneling in the attic. From that point of view, Walt discovered, the creature did not look human. Not remotely. There was only the gargantuan pod, run through with twisting, branching arteries and every bit as blood red as the face on the ceiling below.
Walt preferred the view from below. The constant movement of the mouth was somewhat disquieting, but he yearned to decode its silent message if one was to be found.
“I know you’re hungry,” he said apologetically. “I’m working on it. It’s not as easy as it probably looks.”
Ba, ba, ba, it mimed. It didn’t pause while Walt spoke.
“Are you in pain?”
“Ahhhhhhg,” the mouth moaned, finally breaking the rhythm. Its tongue hung slack, unable to support the desperate need to communicate.
“What do you need?”
“Buhwuhhhh,” the creature replied. Thick strands of saliva dropped out of its mouth and splashed against Walt’s pants. He didn’t so much as flinch. He was far too preoccupied with uncovering the meaning behind the thing’s plaintive groans.
“You’ll never speak letting your tongue droop like that,” he reprimanded it. “You’ve got it. Use it.”
“Bwuhhhhhhb.”
Walt sighed heavily. He wondered which was going to require the most patience: his ninth graders in the fall, or the babbling entity in the ceiling.
“Bwub,” he mimicked. Then, rising and grabbing the stool by its round, worn seat, he said, “Keep it up, then. You’ll get there.”
He dragged the stool back to the kitchen and decided to put some coffee on. Let the old roomie ramble incoherently, he thought. I’ll take my coffee on the porch and pore over some Coleridge.
Indeed, the jabbering mouth went on with its gibberish, even as Walt shut the front door to block out the noise. After a few minutes of Frost at Midnight, the creature finally began to make noises that sounded like actual words. He was dimly aware of the thing’s ongoing chatter, but only in its capacity as white noise. If he was unable to shut out meaningless prattle, after all, he would never make it as a schoolteacher.
Still, the incessant reminder of the creature’s proximity made it difficult for him to focus on the text in his hand. Every few lines, he found his mind wandering toward the troublesome question of keeping his new tenant in food. Sure, he could set any number of little traps out in the field behind his house, but even rabbits and moles were bound to catch on eventually. There had to be other pet shops in town, but how long would it take before they figured out what he was doing and put a call in to the ASPCA? And would that amount to a misdemeanor and a hefty fine, or a felony with a prison sentence? Were he to go to prison, there would be no one to feed the creature. The roommate.
He set the book down on the rocking chair and took his mug back into the house. Placing it on the kitchen counter beside the coffee maker, he pulled the carafe out and refilled the cup. He was about to turn toward the freezer for an ice cube to cool his coffee when the next utterance of the increasingly troublesome thing in the hall startled him, causing him to swing his hand and knock the mug off the counter. It sailed across the kitchen, spraying steaming black coffee across the linoleum before smashing into the floor and exploding into a thousand tiny ceramic shards. Walt gasped, gulping for air. His heart slammed in his chest and his face flushed.
Had he heard what he thought he’d heard?
He craned his neck and cautiously tiptoed over the warm, wet floor, careful not to step on any of the jagged shards in his bare feet. When he reached the archway between the kitchen and the hall, he gazed up at the ceiling.
The creature’s eyes darted toward him, wide and shimmering. It parted its lips, licked them with the tip of its tongue and then groaned.
“Bloooood,” it said.
12
The sun sat at just the right angle to blast the porch with light and heat. It looked stark white, its edges blurry, wavering and indistinct. The sky in which it floated was the same hot white, and there were no clouds. The heat had burned them all up.
Walt sat still in the rocking chair, moving only to occasionally wipe the slick sweat from his forehead. The heat was getting to be unbearable, but he knew it was always worst at the end of the summer, right before the first cool of autumn finally swept in to relieve the suffering. He longed for a cold glass of water, but he lacked the initiative to get up and go get one. Besides, he promised himself he would not return to face it before he had a solution to their little problem.
He spent the morning back in the field behind his house, looking for critters to catch and bleed dry. Unfortunately for Walt, his luck from the previous trip did not hold. The rabbit was a boon, an unlikely fluke that was not to be repeated in the near future. Nevertheless, he strode through the tall, scratchy grass, scanning every square foot of the field and coming up completely empty. The only life he detected consisted of the black birds in the treetops and the stocky man in a red plaid shirt shambling through the reeds toward him.
The man raised a thick arm in greeting as he gradually drew nearer to Walt, who remained as still as a mannequin. When only a few yards stretched between them, Walt could make out the man’s grizzled, deeply lined face and the shock of thick white hair that seemed to burst out of his scalp like fire.
“Hullo there!” the man shouted.
Walt nodded and gave a weak wave.
“Dudley,” the man said breathlessly as he closed the gap.
“Dudley Chapel.” He shoved a flattened hand out. Reluctantly, Walt accepted the handshake.
“Walt Blackmore,” he muttered.
“Reckon you bought the Shelton house back ‘ere, am I right?”
Dudley released his hand and pointed. Walt followed the trajectory of Dudley’s gnarled finger with his eyes. The older man was pointing at his new house.
“Shelton?”
“That’s right. Darryl and Imelda Shelton lived in that house…oh, I’d say twenty years if a day. Well, Imelda, anyway—Darryl passed on some time back. She wasn’t never the same after that, poor girl. ‘Course, I been in mine for twice that long, but I’m just an old-timer.”
“I see,” Walt said in a half-whisper.
“Figure I’m your closest neighbor, on account of my place is three quarters of a mile up and over the hill, there.” He turned his pointing finger in the opposite direction. Walt squinted. “You can’t even see the hill from here, can you? Yep, and I’m the closest.”
Walt said, “Huh.”
“Seems I heard some rumblings about your place finally getting bought up, but I didn’t come ‘round to snoop. No sir, I’m just getting the blood moving. Don’t do it near often enough. And I seen you in the field here, so I says to myself, I says, Dudley, you ought to go introduce yourself to that young man. So here I am!”
Walt fought to turn his genuine sneer into an entirely counterfeit smile.
“Glad you did, Mr. Chapel,” he lied.
“Through them woods, over the hill; right at the bottom, that’s my property. Used to be a working farm, but that was parceled up and sold off years ago. Big red house with white shutters, can’t miss it.”
Walt nodded some more and wondered when the annoying old man was going to go away.
“Any time you get the hankering to drop in,” Dudley continued, “I’m sure me and the missus would be just as happy as clams to have you in for a sit.”
“I sure appreciate that, Mr. Chapel.”
“And knock off that Mr. Chapel stuff, youngster! I’m Dudley, you hear?”
A huge grin spread across Dudley’s face, exposing clean white dentures.
“I hear you, Dudley.”
With that, the old man saunter
ed back in the direction from which he came, stopping only to yell back at Walt: “See you soon, Walt!”
Walt sincerely hoped that would not be the case.
Hours later, he remained empty-handed on the prey front and bereft of ideas. Dazed from the early afternoon heat, he drifted in and out of half-sleep in the chair on his porch, his mind wandering over the surface of the quandary but never quite landing on anything. He was nearly dreaming when a loud, high-pitched whine sounded in his left ear, snapping him awake. He wiggled his fingers in the ear, shooing the annoying insect away, but as soon as he returned his hand to his lap the bug returned, buzzing more frenetically than ever. Walt swatted with greater intensity and shook his head. The insect buzzed away. He let out a long, relieved breath and relaxed. But he was fully awake now. And the problem remained.
He pulled himself up and out of the chair, groaning and stretching. Somewhere in the far distance a dog barked. He wondered what time it was. Glancing at his wrist, he frowned at the white band of skin where his watch normally hung. He then narrowed his eyes at the mosquito further up on his forearm, frozen in place with its proboscis injected deep into his skin. With his other hand, he slapped the mosquito, squashing it. A tiny red streak dotted with crushed bits of black was all that remained on his skin. He tilted his head, avoiding the bright sunlight as he raised his arm for a closer inspection.
He wished he hadn’t smashed the mosquito at all. A little blood was not so much to give, not to a creature that required it to survive.
Walt smiled. He went back inside.
***
The knife was sharp, but not exactly ideal. A carbon steel tourne knife, it had been part of a set Walt received as a Christmas gift from his sister, Sarah, some years back. To his recollection, he had never used it. He was not even sure he knew what a tourne knife was for.
Sharp as the blade was, he longed for something more appropriate. A scalpel would be the thing, but where did one get a scalpel? An art supply store, he supposed. He was relatively certain he had seen such instruments at the art shop in Madison, back in his college days when he decided to give painting a shot. But was it really worth the effort to drive clear into town for a blade that was probably no sharper than the one in his hand? Walt concluded that it was not. Then he began cutting.
The point of the knife made an indentation on his arm. The skin sank in, forming straight, thin wrinkles that arched down to the whitening nexus of the dimple. Walt applied a little more pressure and the skin broke. The indent welled up with dark blood more quickly than he expected. He pulled the knife away and watched the thick, round blob rapidly grow, burst and then trickle down his arm. He brought his brows together and wrinkled his nose. It really wasn’t all that much. He was going to have to cut deeper.
Returning the point of the knife to the tiny wound, he pressed harder than before, digging a centimeter into the flesh. He winced at the burning sensation of his skin being cut apart. It was even worse when he began sawing at it, rhythmically moving the knife through the meat in a straight line toward his elbow. Now the wine-dark fluid really started to flow. He hurried, suppressing a scream and dropping the bloody knife on the counter, and he snatched up the transparent plastic bowl beside it. The blood ran down the deep canal he made with the tourne knife, welled up at the terminus of the wound, and then spilled out in fat droplets into the bowl. When the flow slowed to an infrequent trickle, Walt set the bowl on the counter and squeezed the injured forearm, forcing the blood out. The pain was sharp and intense; he hissed and whined throughout the procedure.
Behind him, in the hallway, a raspy voice moaned, “Blood…”
“I’m working on it, goddamnit,” Walt groused.
The opening stopped giving, its dark red edges already drying, scabbing up. He ran the kitchen faucet and held his forearm under it, susurrating through his teeth at the agony of cold water on an open wound. When he couldn’t take any more, he turned the water off and shifted his gaze to the bowl of blood on the counter. It didn’t look like much. Surely his roommate got more sustenance from the kitten and the rabbit. He pursed his lips, picked up the bowl and examined it. The viscous liquid sloshed against the side, leaving a thick red trail.
“Blood…”
Walt grunted. The straws were in the utensil drawer; he found the box and extracted one. He dropped it into the bowl, carried it to the hallway. He looked up. The pale eyes stared at him, the mouth sucked at the air. Walt hoped it would be enough. With one hand—the one not attached to a freshly cut arm—he cupped the bowl and lifted it up. The straw shifted, rounding the edge before settling against the dark, bloody lips. The creature’s mouth smacked at the straw, opening and shutting against its end as though it had no idea how such a thing might work. It gave a low, frustrated moan and then reached out with wobbling arms, curling its pudgy red fingers under the base of the bowl. Walt let go, startled and amazed by the new appearance of stubby little nails at the tips of the fingers.
The arms bent at the elbows, drawing the bowl close to the face. Its tongue darted out, flicked the straw away. It spun through the air, ejecting a couple of drops of Walt’s hard-earned blood in the process. The creature then extended its shiny tongue as far as it would go and commenced lapping up the blood. Soft moans of satisfaction accompanied the sharp smacking sounds of the tongue licking up the warm, fresh fluid. When it finished and the bowl was virtually clean, it dropped the dish and let it tumble across the floor.
“Goooood,” it rasped.
Walt stared.
“Good,” he whispered in reply.
“More.”
“More? I can’t give you any more! That was my own blood, you know.”
“More!” the thing hissed.
“I haven’t got any more!”
The creature’s eyes shimmered, its two black pits of a nose twitching. Thrusting its arms at Walt and snatching at him with its infant fingers, it roared.
“Give…more! MoremoremoremoreMORE!”
Walt quickly backed out of the hallway and into the kitchen. The tiny, misshapen hands continued grabbing at the air. The snarling, dripping mouth continued to shriek and roar.
“Christ,” he gasped. “Oh Christ. Jesus.”
He kept moving backward, too afraid to turn his back on the hallway despite his relative certainty that the thing was well-rooted to the ceiling. He felt something nudge his hip. He yelped and leaped to one side, knocking the stool that bumped him on its side with a noisy clatter. His eyes jumped from the stool to the hall. The creature was no longer visible from where he stood. But its dreadful, keening demands still filled the air.
“MOREMOREMOREMOREMORE!”
“Stop it!” Walt screamed, slamming his open hands over his ears.
“MOREMOREMORE…”
“Shut up! Shut the hell up!”
“MOREMOREMORE! BLOOD! BLOOOOOD! ”
Walt screeched, partly with terror and partly with rage. He started this, he was the one who fed it first, allowed it to develop and grow and become this screaming horror. He recognized his responsibility, but for what? Was he responsible for maintaining its terrible existence, or for annihilating it before the situation spiraled wildly out of his control?
Sweat beaded his brow as he sank down to the cool linoleum floor, careful to keep his hands over his ears. He could still hear that thing’s awful, incessant shrieking, but it was at least a little better this way. He could begin thinking. First he thought about the kitten, the repulsive and depraved death that innocent creature met at Walt’s own choosing. The rabbit—being the central point of his next thought—was not as bad. People ate rabbits. But not kittens. That was purely reprehensible, and now he worried that the guilt would hound him for the rest of his days. It could have been worse, he realized, much worse. And should he decide to permit this hellish monster to live, he imagined it very definitely would. This was only going to escalate, growing bloodier and bloodier, until…
Walt felt a shudder work its way through his
body, terminating in his ear canals. Slowly, he slid his hands down. The shrieking seemed to have quieted somewhat. That, or he was already growing accustomed to it.
Well, he thought, not for long. If it’s got a face, it’s got a brain. And a brain is no match for a claw hammer.
There was no question in Walt’s mind that the creature felt pain. Nothing screeched like that unless it was in agony. But it didn’t know the meaning of agony, not yet. Walt pulled himself up to his feet, curled his hands into tight fists, and went in search of his hammer.
13
Thin strips of light sliced through the blinds, several of them jabbing into Amanda’s fluttering eyelids. She opened them, blinked repeatedly. Tiny motes of dust floated where the yellow-white slats cut through, but not in the shadows in between. She narrowed her eyes at them, enjoying the warmth but not the brightness. Rolling over on her side, she turned away and faced the digital alarm clock beside the bed. For a fraction of a second, she felt panicked; it was a quarter to ten, far too late in the morning to get to the shop on time. But she relaxed at the faint memory of Nora’s promise to get the store running alone.
“Sleep in,” she’d demanded last night. “Enjoy your coffee, read the paper, and call Walt when you feel up to it. Then call a goddamned exterminator. Those worms are pretty disgusting.”
Amanda smiled, stretched, let out a quiet yawn. That Nora was a hell of a gal. Bat-shit crazy, but an incredibly loyal and valuable friend. While she gradually lifted herself up from the warmth and comfort of her bed, she considered options for demonstrating her gratitude. Her usual thank you gift was a book, but that was out. You don’t give a book to someone who co-owns a bookstore. Flowers were normally appreciated, but Nora wasn’t really the type for things that required perpetual attention. Amanda knitted her brow and shuffled to the bathroom. She peed, nearly falling asleep on the toilet.