The Visible Filth

by Nathan Ballingrud

  The lights were out. Nobody came to answer his presence.

  “Carrie?”

  Still nothing.

  “Is anybody in here? Come on out.”

  By this time, anger had occluded the fear. Someone had come into his house. With Carrie here. The words of that college kid tolled in his skull like funeral bell.

  He strode in quickly, flipping on the lights. Two roaches scurried across the floor to hide in a deep crevice between the wall and the floorboards. “Carrie! Are you in here?”

  Passing through the kitchen, he yanked open the cutlery drawer so forcefully that it hung from its runners like something disemboweled, spilling half of its contents onto the floor in a bright clatter. He retrieved a chef’s knife from the pile, clutched it hard, and kept walking.

  The familiar computer screen bleed of light seeped from Carrie’s study. He strode to the entrance and there she was, as he’d found her last night, staring into the screen. She seemed unhurt: no blood, no signs of distress of any kind. Her hair was loose and unwashed, and she was dressed for bed. Something in the room stank.

  “Carrie. Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you answer?”

  She did not seem to register his presence.

  “Carrie?”

  On the screen was the same image: the camera, still moving through the dark, wet hole. This time she’d turned the sound on: a distant, hollow wind, like putting your ear to a seashell. The fear settled back over him with a fluttering silence, birds settling onto a tree. He put his hand on her forehead: she was clammy and sweaty. He realized with a twist of despair that the stink was coming from her: she had pissed herself, and even now sat in a puddle of it.

  “Oh fuck.”

  Facing her, turned away from the rest of the apartment, he felt as though he was standing with his back to the mouth of a bear cave.

  Turning around, he said, “Who’s here, baby? Is anybody else here?”

  He left her sitting there, crept into the kitchen and turned right into the living room. Enough ambient light leaked in through the windows that, after standing there for a moment, he could be reasonably sure it was empty. But the door to the bedroom loomed beyond it, and no light intruded there.

  Will clicked on a lamp in the living room. Shadows leaped and scattered, settling immediately into a picture of order and familiarity. The couch, the TV, the framed film stills Carrie prized so much. Light wedged into the bedroom.

  “If anybody’s in there, you need to come out right now. I swear to God, man. This is no joke.”

  When no one stepped forth, Will crossed the bedroom’s threshold, peering in. The bed was unmade and the sheets were rumpled, which was typical. Neither of them had ever gotten into the habit of making it. A small pile of dirty laundry coiled in one corner of the room, spilling from a full basket. A comic book lay on the floor near his side of the bed, stacked notebooks and textbooks on hers. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

  He flicked on the light switch, then knelt down and peered under the bed.

  The apartment was empty.

  Will sat on the bed, the tension unspooling from him in a long, shaky exhalation. He thought of Carrie sitting there still, in a puddle of her own urine, staring at that stupid loop on her computer. He thought of her sending him these pictures. Maybe she was losing her mind. He thought he recalled her mentioning that one of her grandmothers had suffered from some kind of mental breakdown, living out a lonely end in a mental institution. Maybe that kind of thing ran in the family. He didn’t know.

  A terrible, gaping sadness opened in him, and he put his thumb and forefinger to his eyes to stifle the sudden tears.

  The title of the book she’d been looking for floated across his thoughts, unbidden and unwelcome: The Second Translation of Wounds.

  His phone chimed in his pocket, startling him so badly he jumped.

  Garrett’s name was on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  That voice seeped out again: a shard of bone pushed through a throat. A welling of blood. Was it Garrett himself? The thing that had ripped out his teeth? Or something that had crawled out of him? Will listened with tears spilling from his eyes.

  CARRIE COULD NOT be coaxed from her chair until he shut her computer down, eliciting from her a small sound of loss. Her eyes, bloodshot and dry, finally closed. She sagged into him, utterly exhausted, and he held her head to his shoulder, wrestling to maintain his own outward calm. Inside, it felt as though pieces of himself were sliding away, like an iceberg calving into the sea. He was hunched behind a panic wall; just beyond it, he knew, must be a correct response. Something simple and easy. But there was also a howling chaos there, a black tumble of fear, and he couldn’t face that just yet. He knew, in a distant way, that he was in shock, but he didn’t know how to find his way out of it.

  The first order of business was to restore sanity to his own home.

  He lifted Carrie from her chair, heedless of the urine, and carried her calmly to the bedroom. She did not protest; he thought she had fallen asleep, until he glanced down and saw her eyes were open and unfixed. He laid her on the bed, next to where he’d left his cell phone. He knocked it to the floor with an angry flick of the wrist, as though it were a cockroach that had crawled into their sheets. He ran hot water into the bath, and in moments he had her undressed and submerged to her shoulders. He talked to her while he bathed her, saying nothing in particular – just maintaining what he hoped was a steady, calming flow of speech.

  Once the water began to cool, he drained it and guided her out of the bathroom. She seemed to have recovered something of herself. She unhooked her robe from the door and shrugged into it, binding it tightly around her waist. Then she sat on the bed and sighed deeply, still staring at the floor. But she was present this time; she had come back.

  Will sat beside her and for a time neither of them said anything. He tried to imagine what might be going through her head, but couldn’t do it. His phone, its screen now cracked, blinked at him from the floor. Three missed calls. All from the bar. He didn’t even want to imagine what was going on over there. He took it for granted that the job was lost.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she said, finally.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you come home?”

  He looked at her. She was still staring at the floor, or at nothing in particular, and he couldn’t gauge the weather in her voice. She was no less mysterious for having decided to speak to him. “Do you remember anything that just happened, Carrie?”

  Her brow furrowed as she tried to think. “I was looking for something online. Doing some research. Then you called me.”

  “I didn’t call you, Carrie.”

  “You did. I remember because you were at work and I wondered what it could be about.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Well your number came up. After that… I don’t know. It’s hard to think.”

  The image of the figure sitting on their bed, its head weirdly distorted, floated to the surface of his mind. “Was anybody here tonight?”

  This question seemed to require a special degree of concentration. “I think there was.” Something in her voice slipped. “Oh my God. I think someone was here.”

  “Who?”

  Carrie shook her head. “I don’t know. I was doing research. Your call came in. I remember talking to you.”

  “Goddamn it, Carrie, it wasn’t me!”

  She rubbed her finger against her temple – lightly at first, and then with increasing ferocity. Startled, he pulled her hand away. “Am I going crazy?” she said. “Do I have a brain tumor?”

  “No, it’s… no.” He drew in a deep breath. “What’s The Second Translation of Wounds, Carrie? What were you researching?”

  Her face blanched; she leaned over, her head between her knees, and for a moment he thought she was going to puke. But she pulled herself together and sat up again. “It’s a book. I was trying to figure out what those pictures were. It was on the table in
the video.”

  The red volume. Of course. “What kind of book is it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. Something bad. It’s something bad. I can’t seem to hang onto it.”

  “What about the tunnel?”

  “What tunnel?”

  “When I came home… two nights now. You’re looking at a tunnel.”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice shook. She put her hands on his face and pulled at him, turning his face into a grotesque frown. “What did we see, Will? What did we see?”

  He didn’t say anything. The panic wall stood resolute. No option made sense.

  After another moment, Carrie drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and quickly expelled it. “Okay. Well. You have to go back to work. We can’t afford you to lose that job.”

  “Are you serious? I can’t go back there tonight.”

  “At least call them and make sure they didn’t loot the place.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” He retrieved his cracked phone from the floor; when he saw there were no new texts or images waiting for him, he felt a giddy relief, and almost laughed. He dialed back the bar. Doug answered; apparently somebody had the good sense to get him in early.

  “Will, what the fuck?”

  “It was an emergency. I’m sorry. I had no choice. How’s the bar?”

  “Everything’s mostly fine. Are you okay, man?”

  “Yeah. I’m good. I’ll be back tomorrow night, if I still have a job.”

  “Relax. We got you covered.”

  He felt such a tide of gratitude that he had to fight back tears. “Thanks, man.”

  “Just do what you need to do.”

  Will started to hang up when Doug started talking again.

  “Say that again?”

  “I said Eric called down, asking for you. Told him you went home early. I didn’t know you guys were buddies.”

  “We’re not. What did he want?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. I gave him your number though. It’s probably a booty call. I don’t judge, brother.”

  Will barked a laugh. It sounded bad. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  SOMETIME IN THE dark morning, while Carrie slept, Will crept into her workroom and activated her computer. The image of the tunnel flickered onto the screen, frozen. After a moment, the computer re-connected to the internet, and the image started moving again – drifting through the black tunnel. He glanced up at the URL line; it was blank.

  The sound of wind still drifted gently from the speakers. Will was struck with the notion that the screen did not show a descent into the depths, but the perspective of something rising from them. Something dragging itself into the light.

  Will reclined in the chair. An unpleasant energy coursed through him, filling him with an urge to action, but what that action might be he didn’t know. He went to the freezer and took the bottle of vodka, taking a few good slugs to calm himself.

  It worked, at least partly. He was able to sit down again.

  He took the yellow phone from his pocket and placed it on the desk. Then he took out his own phone and dialed Alicia’s number.

  After a long moment, she answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s me.”

  “Hey, Will. You shouldn’t call here.”

  He leaned closer to the screen, trying to pull an image from the shadows.

  “I know. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m just wondering if you’re okay.”

  “I am. Thanks. How are you?”

  “Good, I think. So… you told him, I guess.”

  “Yes. I didn’t mean to. Or maybe I did. I don’t know.”

  He thought he could detect something – some scuttling presence – but it could have been just the pixels playing tricks on him.

  “It’s okay. Is he there with you?”

  “Yes. In the other room.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. Look… I can’t talk to you right now. I have to go, okay?”

  “Will I see you tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t know. I have to go. Good night, Will. Don’t call back.”

  He thought he heard another sound riding underneath the hollow wind coming from the speakers. He felt something ripple across his nerves, like a cool breath.

  “Yeah. Okay. Good night.”

  She had already hung up. He put his ear next to the speaker. He strained to hear.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Will broke things off with Carrie. He waited until she was fully awake, and they were sharing their usual coffee at the kitchen table. He was abrupt and passionless.

  “I think we should break up,” he said. “This isn’t working.”

  She did not immediately respond. His instinct was to keep talking, to fill the long silence with all the usual platitudes and excuses, but he stayed quiet.

  He told himself he was doing this to protect her. Whatever foulness had wormed into his life was threatening her, and he wanted her well clear of it. He even allowed himself the small fantasy that after it was resolved – however that might be – he would tell her about why he did it, and although they would not be able to repair the hurt he was causing her now, she would at least come to understand his reasons, and to hold him in a higher regard because of them. She would view this as a noble sacrifice.

  He told himself, too, that he was just beating her to the punch. That she was going to dump him soon anyway, for Steve the English Professor or for somebody else more accomplished than Will was, and for once he’d like to be on the delivery side of that particular bullet.

  But all of that was bullshit, and even he knew it. Though what was happening to them might have catalyzed the action, the real reason was Alicia. He wanted her. He believed, at heart, that she wanted him too. And after last night, he didn’t think Jeffrey would be an obstacle anymore.

  He waited for the tears and the anger. She sat across from him, her gaze unfixed, almost contemplative. She took another sip from her mug, and he suffered a bad moment in which he thought he hadn’t actually said anything at all, that he was still gathering the courage to do it. He felt slippage between himself and the world, like a soundtrack desynchronized from its film.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He nodded dumbly. That wasn’t enough. That didn’t tell him anything. It didn’t tell him what he needed to do next. He gave her a moment to elaborate, but she chose not to take it. So finally he said, “That’s it?”

  “Yup. That’s it.”

  “Fuck.” He leaned back, dismayed and hurt. “Well, fine then. ‘Okay.’ What a nice capstone.”

  She looked confused. “Why are you acting offended? You’re the one who’s breaking up with me.”

  “Yeah, but do you even care?”

  “Not right now I don’t. That’ll come later. But you don’t get to see that.”

  “I just can’t believe how calmly you’re taking this.” He heard his own voice tremble, start to rise.

  “It’s been coming for a while. I know you want Alicia. It’s too bad she doesn’t want you.”

  “That’s not it.” He immediately regretted the lie, knowing it would be revealed as such within a matter of days.

  “Then what is it? Are you threatened by Steve? Still think he wants to fuck me?”

  “No. Come on. Will you stop with that shit?”

  “Your words.”

  “I was being stupid.”

  “You’re still being stupid, Will.”

  “Well, fuck you.” He stared into his coffee, unable to meet her gaze. He felt the heat in his face, knew he was flushed. He tried to settle his breathing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. Will you just let me talk?”

  She sat unmoved, watching him with an unearthly calm. “I didn’t know I was stopping you. Please. Go ahead.”

  “It’s not Alicia, okay? I wish you would stop with that, because it’s bullshit, and it’s always been bullshit. It’s… it’s this stuff w
ith the pictures. The phone. It’s dangerous. I don’t want you around it.”

  Finally, he got a reaction. Her face pinched in anger. “Really? You’re an action hero now?”

  “What? No! Come on, Carrie.”

  “Can you hear yourself? I’m already ‘around it.’ It’s happening to me. You’re just a goddamn spectator!”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re scared. You’re a scared little boy. I’m scared too, Will. But I would never have abandoned you to it.”

  He wanted to cry. This was going as wrongly as it could go. “No, that’s not what I mean. Carrie…”

  “No, fuck you. I wasn’t angry until just now. I was disappointed. I was hurt. But I almost respected you for a minute there, Will. I almost thought you were doing the right thing. But now I’m pissed. So if that’s what you wanted, congratulations. You got it.”

  “It’s not what I wanted.”

  “You don’t have any idea what you want. You know what I think you want? Nothing. I think there’s nothing there to satisfy. I think you’re a mock person, you’re some kind of walking shell.” She took a breath, and brought her wrist to the corner of her eye to staunch a tear. “I guess you can find a place to crash until you get a new apartment, right?”

  For some reason, this hurt worse than anything else she’d said. “Really? Today?”

  “What did you expect? That we’d cuddle? Besides, I might be in danger, right?”

  “Fine.” He got up. A terrible weight suspended between his lungs, threatening to upend him. He felt the heat of shame and grief gather in his face. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. He made his way to the bedroom and excavated a crumpled duffel bag from the recesses of the closet. He began to shove clothes into it, heedless of what he might actually need. Just random things. When he walked to the bathroom to get his toothbrush and his razor, he heard a stifled sob in the kitchen.

  This was the world he’d built. This was his kingdom.

  IT DIDN’T APPEAR as though anyone had been to Eric’s door in the two days since Will had last stopped by. A fly-dappled recycling bin, topped off with beer bottles, had been shoved outside but not carried to the curb, suggesting that at least some effort had been expended in cleaning up inside. Will knocked on the door and waited. When no answer came, he tested the door, and it opened readily for him.