Unusual Events: A Short Story Collection

by Max Florschutz

  His roommate had other ideas. “Hang on,” he said, rising and pointing at his waffle plate. “Get another chunk of that ready.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it?” Nick stepped up to the counter, then reached over and put his hands on the front of the stove. “We’re going to see what this thing is.”

  Jose frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He glanced at the clock. “You’ve only got fifteen minutes before you need to be in class.”

  “It’s fine,” Nick said, bracing himself. “Just grab the waffle bit and throw it on the floor. Then get ready to look.”

  “All right …” He plucked off a piece of waffle, the still-warm bread sticking to his fingers as he took a step toward the stove. He flicked the soft bread onto the ground in front of the appliance and then took a step back, dropping to his hands and knees.

  They didn’t have to wait long. The tendril moved quicker this time, with all sense of prior hesitancy towards the waffle chunk gone. It snaked out, wrapped its tip around the chunk of warm, syrup-drenched bread and—

  “Now!” Nick tilted the stove back on its rear feet, widening the gap and letting light spill in. But the tendril was faster, darting back into the space even as the stove moved and then …

  Nothing.

  “What do you see?” Nick asked. Jose shook his head.

  “Nothing,” he said, squinting. “Seriously, nothing.” All he could see was the dull metal underside of the stove and the bland grey of more kitchen tile—though it was, he noticed, clean tile.

  But of whatever creature that had been stealing their chocolate chips, there was no sign. Bare tile, bare metal, bare cabinet siding on either side. No holes, nowhere for it to go, unless it was behind the stove.

  “Dude, check the back of the stove,” he said, gesturing at Nick. Nick complied, letting the stove tilt forward just enough that he could see down the back.

  “Nope, nada,” he said, shaking his head as he looked back at him.

  “Well, there’s nothing under here,” Jose said, shaking his head. “It’s just gone, whatever it was.”

  “Where did it go?” Nick asked, lowering the stove to the ground once more and pushing it back into place. “Maybe … Aha!” He jerked the oven door open, only to stare sheepishly at the empty wire racks. “Maybe not,” he said, shutting it.

  “Look!”

  Nick jerked back as Jose spoke, yanking his foot away from the vicinity of the stove. The tendril was back, though it flinched away in time with the movement of Nick’s foot before darting out once more to grab the abandoned bit of waffle.

  “Weird …” Nick said, and Jose found himself nodding in agreement. “Do you think we should call someone?”

  “Like who?” Jose asked. “An exterminator?” He shook his head as the faint trill rang through the kitchen again. “Dude, this is grade-A weird.”

  “Grade-A? Really?”

  “Okay, maybe not,” he said, nodding. “Maybe grade-B.” He tossed another chocolate chip onto the floor, but this time the tendril waited a while. Maybe whatever was on the other end was getting full.

  “Still,” he said, rising as the tendril vanished. “We should probably call somebody. Like a spook or something.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Nick said, stepping back and tugging his phone from his pocket. “Or we could YouTube—and I’m going to be late. I gotta run.”

  “What?” Nick was already moving away through the apartment as he spoke, grabbing his stuff. “What about ... What about this thing?”

  “We’ll deal with it later, man!” Nick said. “I’ve got to run to class! And then I have to meet up with Nikki! Later!” Then he was gone, the door swinging shut with a bang behind him.

  “I …” Jose looked back down at the stove, and then at the batter sitting on the counter. If Nick was gone, that meant he only had thirty-five minutes until his first class started, which meant …

  Priorities. He reached over and grabbed the mixing bowl, standing well off to the side of the stove as he gave the batter one final quick mix and turned the heat on below the pan. A tendril under their stove was one thing … but it didn’t seem that hazardous. Besides, he’d already used his only absence from Chem 305.

  He cooked and ate his breakfast as quickly as possible, then left the apartment. If the thing under the stove wasn’t a problem, then it could either wait until later, or until it was one.

  At the moment, he had a chem class to go to.

  * * *

  It was dark out by the time Jose returned to the apartment that night, his body tired and sore from a full day of classes followed by a shift at his job. He stepped into the front room, his backpack sliding from his shoulders as he half-stumbled across the dirty carpet towards the room’s battered and beaten couch. He sank into it with a sigh, his feet crying in relief as he took his weight off of them.

  One day, he thought as he lifted a leg and began pulling off a shoe. One day I will be able to afford a bus pass. Until then, though, he was walking or hitching a ride.

  I should have picked a college with a bus program, he thought as he dropped his shoe to the floor with a thump. Then I wouldn’t have to do all this walking.

  “Hey, Jose,” came a call from the kitchen. “You home?”

  “Yeah,” he said, letting his head drop onto the back of the couch. It felt good to sit down, like his whole body was finally relaxing. “What a day.” There was no reply. “How about yours?”

  “Not bad,” Nick said. “Barely made it to class on time, but whatever. Work was about like usual.”

  “You see Nikki?” Jose asked, closing his eyes.

  Can’t fall asleep, he reminded himself. There’s still homework. Ugh.

  “Not for long,” Nick said. “Still, we got to talk for a minute before her shift ended.” Nikki was another student, a math major that Nick had met at his job and immediately developed an interest in. His running project for the last few weeks had been building up enough of a rapport to ask her out on a date—one that would hopefully lead to a relationship.

  “Ask her out?” It was an almost nightly question at this point.

  “No,” Nick said. “I didn’t get the chance. She was gone before we could talk much.”

  “Back to classes?”

  “Something like that.” There was a tone to Nick’s voice that said that was what he hoped it was. “Hey, did you tell anyone about Trill?”

  “Trill?” Jose racked his mind, digging through the fog of a long day to try and place the name. It didn’t sound familiar. “Who’s Trill?”

  “The thing under the stove,” Nick said as Jose lifted his other leg and kicked his shoe off. “You know, the one that ate your chocolate chips?”

  He jerked forward as the memory flooded back. He’d been so busy with classes and work, he hadn’t thought about it since he’d left the apartment. “You found out what it was?” he asked, pushing himself away from the couch.

  “What? No, dude, I’ve got no idea,” Nick said, looking up at him as he walked into the kitchen. He was sitting at the kitchen table, classwork and an open laptop spread before him. “I just started calling it that because it makes that noise if you give it something it likes.”

  “Something it likes?” Jose asked as he came to a stop. “Wait, you mean you’re actually feeding it?”

  “Well yeah,” Nick said, shrugging. “Is that so bad? It’s what we were doing this morning.”

  “Well, yeah, but …” He stopped, the logic momentarily stunning his tired brain. “Why are you feeding it now?”

  Nick shrugged and then turned to his laptop. “I thought maybe I could figure out what it was.” He pointed a finger at the space in front of the stove. “So far, it hasn’t gotten full, and I’ve found it won’t go for anything bigger than about two inches across, unless it’s something that can be compressed really easily.”

  “Okay?” he said, staring down at the clear patch on the floor. From the look of the tile, one of the foods Ni
ck had offered it had come with some kind of sauce.

  “Also, it seems fondest of sweet things,” Nick said, either oblivious to his confusion or not caring. “It doesn’t like salads much—though I’m only guessing there, since I didn’t have one on hand: I offered it some lettuce from the taco I had for dinner. It’ll lick ice cream right off of the floor—”

  “Why?” The word burst free of his mouth as he turned back to look at his roommate.

  “Why?” Nick asked. Then he shook his head. “Oh, because I was trying to figure out what it was. Searching ‘tentacle that eats food under stove’ got me nowhere. So I decided I was going to learn a little bit more about it.”

  “Okay.” That made sense. He leaned down on the table, jerking his head towards the laptop. “What’d you learn?”

  “Well …” Nick said, giving him an embarrassed grin. “Actually, nothing.”

  “Nothing? Seriously?”

  Nick spun the laptop so that Jose could better see the screen. “Nothing,” he repeated, tapping the selection of images he’d pulled up. “Nothing that matches anything close to what we have poking around under our stove right now.”

  “So it’s new?” Jose asked, turning and looking back down at the stove.

  “I guess,” Nick said, shrugging. “That or nobody really talks about it. There’s not even an entry on the official NSAU database.”

  “NSA who?”

  “The people who keep an eye on Unusuals,” Nick said. “I checked their site. Got nothing. Whatever Trill is, it’s not online anywhere that I can find.”

  “So,” Jose said, rubbing at his forehead. “You don’t know what it is, nobody else may know, and you named it Trill?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “That’s the sound it makes when it’s happy.”

  “Why name it at all?” he asked, glancing back at the space below the stove. “I thought we were going to call an exterminator?”

  “If we do, Ms. Jinan will want to know why,” Nick said. “Besides, how would an exterminator deal with something we couldn’t catch?”

  “Okay.” He nodded. It was a fair point. “What about someone else? Isn’t there somebody who deals with weird stuff like this?”

  Nick shrugged. “There’s a form on the NSAU website I ended up on.”

  He grinned. “Perfect.”

  “Not so fast,” his roommate said, shaking his head. “We have to enter in a bunch of information first, including what kind of Unusual creature we’re dealing with, if possible.”

  “Oh.”

  “And a threat assessment.”

  “Oh.” His momentary sense of elation sank. “So unless we know what it is, or if it’s dangerous …”

  Nick nodded. “We probably shouldn’t expect a fast response,” he finished. “And all my other searches are bringing up zilch. Absolutely nothing. You’re welcome to try though.”

  “I …” Jose looked back down at the clear patch on the floor. “Maybe not tonight,” he said, turning back towards Nick. “I’ve got a ton of work to get done. Do you think it’s going to be a problem?”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, the floor’s clean, right? So it has to have been under there for a while. I’ve cooked breakfast barefoot in front of that stove without any problems, so it’s not going after our feet.” He tapped at the laptop screen. “Want to try?”

  “I … No.” Jose shook his head. “No, I’ve got too much homework to do tonight.” Homework he’d need to start soon if he wanted to get to bed before midnight. “Maybe tomorrow? We can get some pictures or something. Post them online?”

  “Ooh, good thinking,” Nick said, nodding as turned back to his schoolwork. “I’ve got stuff I need to get done too.” Then he frowned. “But I work late tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine,” Jose said. “I don’t work at all tomorrow. I can come home, break out some chocolate chips, and ...” He looked back down at the stove. “Maybe have some luck figuring out what this thing is.”

  * * *

  “You’re kidding,” Nick said as Jose pulled out his laptop and showed him the results of the day’s searches.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head as he flipped through the tabs he’d opened.

  “Nothing?” Nick asked.

  “You sound like I did yesterday,” Jose said, glancing up at his roommate.

  “Yeah, well, you’re the guy with the computer skills,” Nick said. “I thought you’d be the one to figure this out. What about the pictures?”

  “Not a single hit,” he said, shaking his head and fighting the urge to let out a long sigh. “It doesn’t like the flash, but I was able to get some long-exposure shots.”

  “And?”

  He gave up and let the sigh tumble out and roll down his chest. “Nothing,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “Tried reverse image searching; couldn’t get anything like it. I even took video,” he said, lifting his phone and giving it a little shake to punctuate his words. “Uploaded it on a couple of cryptozoological sites along with the pictures.”

  “And?”

  “And everybody thinks we’re frauds,” he said, grimacing. “Today I’ve been called everything from an unimaginative Photoshop user to a misogynist.”

  “Misogynist?”

  “I didn’t say the creature was female, apparently,” he said with a shake of his head. “Bottom line is: nobody knows what this thing—”

  “Trill.”

  “Right. Nobody knows what Trill is, much less believes us about him or her.” He gave Nick another shrug. “I tried getting some shots of under the stove too. No luck. Whatever it is, I swear it knows someone is trying to look at it.”

  Nick gave him a perplexed look. “Then how’d you get pictures?”

  “What?” He shook his head. “No, the pictures were of that little … tendril thing? Whatever it—”

  “Trill.”

  “Trill,” he corrected, “uses to grab food.”

  “Oh.” Nick frowned. “And you got nothing?”

  “Nothing,” he repeated, shaking his head as he turned back to the laptop. He began flipping through the tabs, site after site devoted to Unusuals and cryptozoology flashing across the screen. “Nobody’s ever reported finding a little creature that they can’t see living under their stove before. If they have …” He let out a sigh. “Then they haven’t talked to anyone about it.”

  “Weird.” Nick glanced back at the stove. “You have any other ideas?”

  “Well …” He glanced down at the clock in the corner of the screen. “At this point I’ve been trying to find something for three hours, and I’ve still got stuff to finish for class tomorrow.”

  “So no?”

  “No,” he said, nodding his head. The laptop snapped shut with a plastic-on-plastic click as he tugged the two halves together. “And I need to get out of this chair. Relocate somewhere.” He spared the base of the stove one final glance before rising, his laptop gathered under one arm. “You can try something if you want, but me?” He shook his head, ignoring the slight wave of dizziness that had come with his sudden movement. “I’m done for the day.”

  “All right,” Nick said. He looked disappointed. “Well, I don’t know what I could do that you didn’t …”

  Jose shrugged. “Call an exterminator?” he suggested. “See if they know anything? Maybe a spook?” His throat felt dry. It was definitely time to do something else.

  “It’s too late today,” Nick said, giving him a quick shake of the head. “I’ll call some tomorrow after work.”

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t get us in trouble,” he replied, trying to switch his mind over to his assignments. There were at least three that he could think of, though one of them wasn’t going to be much more than “watch the video and fill in the blanks as the video answers the questions.” Busy work. Still, it would feel more productive than working with whatever it was under their stove.

  “The last thing I want is Ms. Jinan finding another excuse to bill us for somethin
g,” he said, as he turned and walked out of the kitchen. “You know her. If she can fine us for something, she will.”

  “What if she does an inspection?” Nick asked, following him out of the kitchen and into the living room.

  “Are you kidding?” He let out a quick laugh as he dropped down onto the couch. “When was the last time she gave us an inspection?” he asked.

  “When we moved in.”

  “Exactly,” he said, shifting in his seat as he grabbed his backpack. “She’s not interested in inspecting us, just billing us.”

  “So,” Nick said. “Exterminator?”

  He nodded. “Exterminator.”

  * * *

  “You’re kidding.” Now it was his chance to feel disbelieving. “Nobody?”

  “Nope,” Nick said, giving him a shake of his head. “I tried eight different places, man. Nobody has ever heard of anything like this. And I mean nobody.”

  “Well …” He frowned. “What about dealing with it?”

  Nick let out a laugh, a wide grin stretched across his face. “Are you kidding? We’re definitely dealing with something Unusual here. Five of the places just hung up on me when I asked.”

  “And the other three?”

  “Recommended we try a spook.” Nick shrugged. “One of them even gave me a number.”

  That was something they could use. “Did you call it?”

  “No,” Nick said. “I didn’t have time to call before my shift. You can try it tomorrow.”

  “Great.” One more thing to worry about. “At least it doesn’t seem to want to do more than eat what we drop on the floor. Still …” He shook his head. “I might set up a camera to keep an eye on it while we’re not at home.”

  “To see if it leaves or something?” Nick asked.

  Jose nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s been creeping me out thinking about that thing living under there.”

  “Aw, come on,” Nick said. “Trill’s not that bad.”

  “That we know of.”

  “Fair point.” His roommate shrugged, and then his face brightened. “I do have some good news, though.”