The Chrysalis
Page 23
They’d had an incredible week. They completely unplugged, divorcing themselves entirely from the outside world and focusing solely on each other. Taking long, lazy trips out to the middle of the lake in the tiny boat that came with the house; sitting in the sun and reading the beat-up paperback novels that someone else had left behind; cooking multi-course meals, something they never did in their normal life; spending half the day in bed, talking and making love. It had been a wonderful time, a magical start to their marriage. She longed for those days and was determined to get them back.
I’m going to find Tom, she told herself. And we’re going to make everything okay. Together.
* * *
The house waited, looming, in the darkness.
The driveway was covered in snow, so Jenny parked on the street. She got out of the car and leaned against it, staring at the place that was supposed to signify a new beginning for her and Tom. It had stopped snowing during her drive, and the temperature had dropped again. It must have been three or four o’clock in the morning.
Jenny placed her hands on her distended stomach, slightly out of breath. You’re terrified of talking to your own husband, she thought.
The walkway to the porch was covered in snow and ice; Jenny wondered when Tom had last shoveled. If he’d ever shoveled. The empty tree branches overhead reminded her that she’d raked up their leaves only a few months earlier; the memory almost broke her completely.
Jenny glanced down at the sidewalk, blinking away tears, then looked back at the house as her resolve returned. She was here to find her husband. Reclaim him. For her sake and the sake of the baby that was almost ready to be born. She walked slowly along the uneven, frozen walkway, careful to set each foot before moving the next. She’d heard of people taking nasty spills at night in the dead of winter, being knocked unconscious, and freezing to death. Not her. Not today.
Jenny reached the porch and pulled herself up the steps, using the railing for support. The feel of its cold, chipped wood against her fingers was both sobering and exhilarating. The swing swayed slightly at the other end of the porch, its metal chains creaking quietly.
She almost rang the doorbell before deciding that it was her house, too, God damn it. Reaching into her back pocket, she fished out the key that she always kept on her, through all the weeks since the night Tom had knocked the glass of wine out of her hand. She’d known she would need it eventually.
As Jenny neared the door, key in hand, the door creaked open. There was no one in the entryway—perhaps the door hadn’t been completely shut by whoever had last passed through it. Her stomach tightened. Here we go.
She entered the house.
The dining room was dark, but the kitchen threw off enough light for Jenny to see where she was going. Everything looked foreign, as if she’d never been in the house before. Nothing had changed but everything felt different, as if the place were radiating evil or danger, or both. Jenny felt a twinge in her abdomen but ignored it. She was having trouble catching her breath. Her heart was pounding.
“Tom?” she called weakly.
There was no response.
The overhead light in the kitchen seemed brighter than ever when she entered the room. Had Tom replaced the bulb? The bloodstain also looked brighter, almost as if new blood had been spilled, filling the exact same pattern. It had to be a trick of the light. As she stared at the stain, it seemed to lift off the floor and rise toward her. She closed her eyes and shook her head, stepping blindly toward the open basement door.
When she opened her eyes, at the top of the stairs, she called her husband’s name and peered down into the darkness of the basement. The bulb in the stairwell seemed dimmer than she remembered, especially after the brightness of the kitchen, but she could still easily see that damn hole in the fifth step.
At the sight, Jenny’s blood boiled. Her vision clouded with rage and she tried to calm down as her head began to spin, afraid she might fall down the stairs and break her neck. Steadying herself, she was surprised to hear a rhythmic sound rising from the basement. Was that … breathing?
“Tom!” she shouted. “I’m coming down!”
The wet breathing sound stopped. Something deep inside told Jenny to leave, to drive back to her sister’s place and forget that Tom had ever existed, to have her baby and never come back to this goddamn house ever again.
Instead, she descended the stairs.
When she reached the step with the ragged-edged hole, she stopped, set her jaw, and looked into the gap. She thought she could make out things wriggling in the darkness. Tom had told her about the seemingly endless number of millipedes and spiders in the basement, saying that he couldn’t bring himself to kill any of them. She tried to convince herself that that was what she was seeing. But the things half-visible in the shadows looked too large to be regular insects. She told herself, They aren’t really there, Jenny—now, keep moving, and sure enough, after she closed her eyes and opened them to look again, the moving shapes were gone.
This was one of the only times she had ever ventured into the basement in the entire time they’d owned the house. Why? she asked herself. Did I know, on some level, that there was something evil down here? She put her hand on her stomach and thought about the object that Abigail had mentioned finding “on the other side of the world.” Thought about Tom’s behavior and her own. Had he found Abigail’s artifact in the basement and unintentionally infected Jenny somehow? Or intentionally infected her?
She expected it to be pitch black beyond the bottom of the stairs but was surprised to find that Tom had hung Christmas lights, creating a path through the farther shadows of the basement. The colorful lights flickered on and off, creating a strobelike effect.
“Tom?” she said quietly, barely making a sound.
He was nowhere to be seen. She looked around the basement, shocked again at how packed it was with stuff. Had it been this crowded before? It was a hoarder’s paradise, a jumble of boxes and garbage, with piles reaching the ceiling and others spilling everywhere. She wondered if Abigail’s artifact was hidden somewhere in one of those piles.
“Tom?” she said again.
Walking along the makeshift path, Jenny realized that it had been traveled many times. All the detritus was pushed back, and the edges of the pathway had been strung with old bottles and ornaments that caught the gently flashing colors of the seemingly endless Christmas lights. It was beautiful, a certain part of herself had to admit. For a second, she allowed herself to hope that this was Tom finding a new way to showcase his art. Yes, he’d let his behavior spiral out of control, but he wasn’t the first man to break down under the strain of house, kid, and career.
Hell, she felt like she was panicking half the fucking time, too. She imagined reaching the end of this maze of lights and finding Tom with a huge canvas, or a series of canvases, illustrating his struggles in breathtaking oil paints, his way of explaining, of apologizing. An unbidden smile flitted onto her face, but she forced it away. No. If that was true—and it would be a huge step in understanding at least a fraction of what was going on with her husband—he would still need to atone for, and explain, so much.
But the lights and the careful array of glass, ceramic, and metal objects that caught and reflected color—they gave her a glimmer of hope. At the same time, part of her insisted that she turn around and run up those stairs as fast as her pregnant body would allow.
Resolute, Jenny pressed on.
As she got closer to the back walls, the lights became sparser and the shadows darker. The breathing sound had grown louder and more high-pitched, like an animal struggling for air after being badly hurt. Had Tom gotten a pet? No, from all indications, the man could barely take care of himself. Realizing she was approaching two vaguely human-looking shapes, Jenny stopped and tried to make out what she was looking at, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Finally, she was able to determine that she was gazing at Tom. He was facing away from her, toward
the other dark form, which appeared to be stuck to the wall. To Tom’s left was an old refrigerator, its mechanical guts jutting out from the back, coiled metal and frayed wires, as if it had been sliced open for dissection. The thing on the wall caught the light in a strange way, glistening slightly.
“Tom, what the fuck? Are you okay? What the hell is going on down here?”
He didn’t move at the sound of her voice, but she could have sworn she saw the thing on the wall expand slightly, the breathing sound seeming to swell as it did.
Sweat beaded on her forehead and down her back. It was blazing hot back here, despite how cold the rest of the house was. Haltingly, Jenny reached out to grasp her husband’s shoulder. He was wearing a thin T-shirt; she could feel the intense heat of his skin right through the fabric. He must have a fever, she thought.
“Tom? Please.”
Either her touch or the softness of her voice, or both, seemed to have an effect. As he slowly turned around, her arm naturally fell away. When his face was revealed, she barely recognized him.
Her husband looked like a skeleton wrapped in a facsimile of human skin, hair, and clothing. Huge black circles hung beneath his eyes, flesh pulled taut across the cheekbones. Old bruises and cuts peppered his face, and his nose looked … different. His hair was long, almost as long as before he’d cut it to go work with Kevin, and was visibly dirty and greasy, with chunks of … she had no idea what … hanging from it in many places. A graying beard covered the lower part of his face.
His eyes were still beautiful—they looked larger than ever due to his shocking weight loss—and she stared into them for a moment. Though everything else about him had changed, those eyes still belonged to Tom Decker, the man she’d loved for years. But they—he—looked at her without recognition.
“Is this what you’ve been working on down here, Tom? Is that … thing … your art? I’m trying to understand. I … still love you. But I’m worried. You … you don’t look healthy, Tom. Can we go upstairs? And talk? Please?”
He opened his mouth, uttering one word, louder than she expected, and perfectly clear. “Jenny…”
She smiled at the sound of her name coming from his cracked lips. Despite her worries—was he shooting heroin while working on some kind of bizarre mechanical sculpture?—hearing his voice gave her hope. For him. For them. And for their baby. As if in response to her surge of emotion, she felt a kick in her stomach.
“The baby … our baby is kicking. Do you want to feel it?”
She placed one hand on her stomach and reached for her husband with the other. The gesture or the idea of touching his wife seemed to bring him to his senses. He blinked several times, tilting his head, his eyes focusing.
“Baby…?”
“Yes, Tom. Our baby. We’ve missed you so fucking much. Come upstairs with me. Please. I’m begging you. I know we have a lot to work through. But let’s go upstairs and talk. You can feel the baby kicking. I’ll make coffee and we’ll figure everything out.”
Tom’s eyes welled with tears, and her heart broke yet again for her husband. She’d always known that he was a tortured soul, but this was almost too much to bear. Finally, he reached a trembling arm out toward her. Forcing a smile, she took his hand. Slowly, not wanting to spook him, she drew his hand to her stomach, causing him to stumble forward a couple of steps. As his fingers touched her abdomen, his face crumpled with emotion.
They were closer to each other than they had been for a long time. His presence. His hand on her body. It all felt amazing, especially juxtaposed with the insanity of the basement. Even if he looked like shit. Even if he smelled awful.
The baby was making them wait.
She placed her hand over his. “Give it a second,” she whispered.
He stared, wide-eyed, until the baby kicked again. Then his eyes widened sadly, as if the experience had been excruciatingly painful. He tried to pull his hand away, but she wouldn’t let him. She was surprised by his strength, considering how frail he looked, but she was surprised by her own strength, too. She was not letting him go. She wanted her goddamn husband back.
“What is it?” she demanded. “I don’t understand. I need you to explain it to me. Please. What’s the matter?”
He stared her in the eyes, tears streaming down his face now. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I am so sorry. I love you, Jenny.”
“I love you, too,” she said, refusing to cry. “But why are you apologizing? We’re here. Together. We can fix this. Please, let’s just go upstairs.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, then clamped his free hand around her upper arm and pulled her closer to him. She thought he was going to hug her, but he twisted her around so he was behind her and she was facing the dark mass on the wall. This close to it, she could see that it was expanding and contracting regularly, its surface crisscrossed with dark veins. It was huge, bigger than either her or Tom, at least seven feet tall and several feet across. The breathing sound had grown louder again. This, she realized, was no high-tech sculpture. This was Abigail’s artifact. And the fucking thing was alive.
“Jesus Christ, Tom!”
“I love you, Jenny,” he murmured as he pushed her toward the object on the wall. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The dark mass breathed out, pulsing. At its greatest point of expansion, a spot on its surface lightly grazed her cheek, and an incredible burning sensation seared through her face. She thought about the baby inside her.
No!
She threw an elbow at Tom’s head, catching his left cheek. A horrible, dull crack rang out, and blood gushed immediately. It was easily the hardest blow Jenny had struck in her entire life.
Her husband gasped in surprise, reeling back and losing his grip on her. She tripped over her own feet and fell into him, and they both went clattering down into a pile of ancient garbage. Metal rods and wadded paper fell around them as they crashed to the floor, Tom winding up on top of her. Jenny’s head hit the concrete floor and she saw stars.
Tom stared at her with a strange look in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure out what they were doing. The breathing sound got faster again.
“Get the fuck off me!” she yelled.
The urgency in her voice seemed to partially snap him back into the present. He raised one hand to his cheek, touching the blood, then stared at his fingers, confusion rippling across his face.
“Jenny?” he said, barely audible.
A moist, ripping noise echoed from behind him, and Tom shivered so hard that he fell off his wife. On his knees, he looked at the thing on the wall as if he were praying to it. A fissure had appeared in its skin, and dark, thick fluid was gushing out; a horrible smell began to fill the basement. Terrified, Jenny tried to back away, still on the floor, but was stopped by the piles of stuff that surrounded them. Staring as it opened wider, she came to understand what the thing was: a monstrous chrysalis. She knew she should run but was completely unable to move.
A bizarre smile filled Tom’s face as he stared up at the dark mass. It continued to split open, fluid now covering the ground and running along Tom’s feet. He raised his arms higher, caught up in what looked like religious fervor.
“Yes…,” he said gently. “Come on.…”
As if on cue, a large purple-black form fell from the chrysalis, landing right in front of Tom with a wet smack. It was curled up in a fetal position, so it was hard to make out any details, especially in the darkness of this corner of the basement, but Jenny could tell at once that it wasn’t human. As the creature began to stretch out, Tom backed away, on his knees, to give it room. It resembled a giant insect, like a cockroach fused with a scorpion, with multiple sectioned limbs and a long, spiraled tail that ended in a vicious-looking point. Its many eyes were still closed, and its angular skull was covered in short, thick, bristly black hairs. There was no visible nose, and its closed mouth jutted out sharply.
Jenny couldn’t get her legs to respond, found that she had no voice.
 
; Tom leaned forward, putting his hand on the thing’s head and rubbing gently, as if comforting it.
In response to his touch, several of the eyes popped open. Tom’s smile widened.
“There you go,” he said quietly.
The creature wobbled to its full height, towering over Tom, and stared down at him. Jenny wanted to get up and run, but it was as if she were glued to the floor. She could barely even catch her breath. In some distant part of her mind, she realized that huge stabs of pain had been radiating up her body for the last few minutes.
Tom gazed, mesmerized, at the thing. He got to his feet, then slowly reached up and put his hand on its face. All its eyes were open now, and it seemed to be studying Tom with what looked almost like curiosity.
“My baby…,” he said.
Jenny felt like she was going to throw up from the horrible earthy smell of the fluid running beneath her and the sight of muscles rippling under the creature’s leathery skin.
The tail slowly unraveled and flexed. In the next instant, it shot out, its razor-sharp end piercing Tom straight through his stomach and out his back, sending blood splattering everywhere, including all over Jenny. Tom’s eyes went wide; he stared at the creature in confusion, then looked down at the black appendage that had just put a large hole through him.
“Oh,” he said.
“Tom!” Jenny screamed, shuddering in terror.
The creature’s head swiveled as it noticed her. The holiday lights behind Jenny continued to blink on and off, their colors merrily bouncing off the monster’s still-slick skin.
When the thing withdrew its tail, Tom crumpled to the dirty floor with a dull thud, his blood flowing even more freely. The sight of his broken body and the sound of his head hitting the concrete shocked Jenny out of her stupor. She leaped to her feet and bolted for the stairs, scrambling back along the narrow path through the basement, the ornaments and bottles jingling as she frantically brushed past them.