Tenants

by Christopher Motz

  "Getting us drunk isn't really a challenge," Linda said. "More of an expectation."

  "Staying sober is the real challenge," Theresa added.

  "Any men in your life? Women?"

  Twice she's alluded to women, Linda thought. I live next door to a lesbian.

  "Neither," Theresa said. "Relationships are too much work."

  Audrey looked at Linda questioningly.

  "Me? No. I mean, I had a boyfriend, but that's over now."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "I'm not. It was a long time coming. For Christian, love means having someone to hold under his thumb, someone to control. I was dumb enough to play along for a while, but I could see it was going nowhere."

  "Fucking men!" Audrey said.

  "I'll drink to that," Theresa added, clinking her glass against Audrey's.

  Linda and Theresa sipped their rum, knowing what would happen if they overdid it. Audrey didn't have that same restraint. She tilted her glass and drank deeply, finishing half of it in mere seconds. She placed it on the table, wiped her mouth, and stood.

  "I'm going to use the restroom if that's okay? I'll be right back."

  She walked down the hall, flicked on the bathroom light, and closed the door behind her.

  Once inside, she waved at the hidden camera in the corner of the room, assuming Al was in his office watching how things were playing out on his monitors. She flushed the toilet without using it, ran the water in the sink, and checked her hair in the mirror.

  "Drink up, ladies. It's going to be a long night."

  In the living room, Linda leaned closer to Theresa and whispered, "I think she's a lesbian."

  "Yeah, maybe. I'm catching that vibe. She is a good looking woman..."

  "Don't you even think about it!" Linda was well aware that Theresa had certain proclivities toward the fairer sex. She knew her friend would never identify as gay, but she never turned down a chance to have fun. It wasn't Linda's lifestyle, but she had no problem with Theresa's random hook-ups. Sometimes, Linda wished she was open enough to be so carefree. Her batting record with men wasn't anything to write home about.

  "What? I'm not going to do anything. I was just stating the obvious."

  "Well, state the obvious in your own apartment. I'm not running a brothel."

  They laughed as Audrey reentered the room and sat next to Theresa, this time a few inches closer.

  Linda rolled her eyes and took a large swallow of rum.

  "What did I miss?" Audrey asked.

  "Just girls being girls," Theresa said.

  "Oh! I almost forgot!" Audrey bolted from the couch, unlocked the door, and ran into the hall, leaving Linda and Theresa to share a puzzled look. When she returned, she was out of breath and carrying a small plastic baggie of rolling papers.

  "Party favors!" Theresa exclaimed.

  Audrey smiled. "Who's joining me?"

  ***

  Linda had no problem turning Audrey down. She hadn't smoked pot in years, and the last time she did, she puked for what felt like hours. With her head swimming from the alcohol, she knew getting a contact high was already more than she bargained for. For the third time, Audrey offered her the joint, and for the third time Linda shook her head and declined. She had no idea what time it was or how much longer she'd be able to keep up.

  "What's going on around here, anyway?" Linda asked, confusing them with her vague question. "Where is everybody? Why are all the buildings so quiet?"

  "What buildings are you referring to, dear?" Audrey asked.

  "All of them. This one. That fucking Dollar General down the road. It all feels like Chernobyl after the reactor meltdown."

  "Someone's getting drunk," Theresa said. Audrey giggled and patted Theresa's knee with her hand.

  And let it linger.

  Linda noticed this but said nothing. Her mouth had a way of getting her in trouble after a few drinks, so she simply stored it away for another time.

  "I'm serious. I've never seen a place so empty. And that store, Theresa, tell her."

  "Well, it was..."

  Audrey interrupted by putting a finger to Theresa's lips and passing the joint.

  "There was a pregnant girl working there. Melissa. She was smoking right behind the counter like it was the most normal thing she'd ever done. One after the other... dropping ashes on her belly like cookie crumbs."

  "I could go for some cookies right now," Theresa said, pinching the joint between her fingers and taking a long hit.

  Again, Audrey laughed, moving her hand from Theresa's knee to the middle of her thigh. This time, it didn't register. Linda was in her own world.

  "There's no one working there anymore," Audrey said. "The place has been closed for years."

  "Closed? No. I was there earlier. There was a girl..."

  "Maybe you should slow down with the rum, huh?" It was Theresa's turn to laugh, but it wasn't her usual jovial, kind-natured laugh, but rather a cold, mean-hearted guffaw. Something that would have sounded more appropriate coming from a bully at recess.

  "Theresa? What's up with you? You were there. You saw what I saw."

  "I saw an empty store and two creepy dudes wrestling with a shopping cart."

  This fucking rum, Linda thought.

  She was at the point of no return, that sweaty, heavy breathing state where another sip of alcohol could mean the difference between having a great buzz or having to wash vomit from the sheets the following day.

  I have to stop doing this.

  Audrey plucked the joint from Theresa's fingers, inhaled, and blew the pungent smoke into Linda's face.

  Why did I let them smoke that shit in here? The apartment is going to reek for days.

  She coughed and rubbed her eyes.

  When she opened them, Audrey's hand had moved several more inches up Theresa's thigh.

  "What... what are you doing?" she asked.

  "Having some fun," Audrey said. "Aren't you having fun?"

  "I don't know. I feel funny."

  "Girl, you are wasted," Theresa said, braying loud, honking laughter. Linda frowned. Her friend sounded like a cartoon donkey.

  Who the fuck are you? Linda thought.

  She closed her eyes and kept them closed, but the room had begun spinning above her head. She'd heard someone say once that if you smiled, it tricked your mind into fighting the gag reflex. She tried it, but still felt only seconds away from hurling warm rum onto the carpet. She swung her legs off the couch and planted both feet on the floor, but that old wives' tale proved untrue as well.

  I'm not going to puke, not going to puke, notgonnapuke...

  Nope. That didn't work either.

  She forced her eyes open, regretting the decision as the harsh glare of the overhead light burrowed into her brain.

  Theresa's shirt and bra had been removed and tossed on the floor in a pile. It wasn't the first time Linda had seen her friend's breasts, but it was the first time she saw an almost-perfect stranger playing with them. Theresa's head was laid back, her lips slightly parted. The joint smoldered in an empty candy dish.

  "What are you doing?"

  Her words were slurred and incomprehensible. Audrey turned without stopping what she was doing and smiled through a mouthful of sharp, yellow teeth. When she turned back to Theresa, she leaned over and nibbled on her breast, eliciting a pleasurable moan deep in Theresa's throat.

  This isn't happening.

  But it was, all too clearly.

  What had gotten into Theresa? She would have never taken things this far in front of a spectator.

  Is that what I am? A spectator?

  Her stomach rolled.

  "Can you two... uh... take this to the bedroom or something?" She laughed but couldn't even convince herself of its authenticity.

  If they heard her, they gave no indication. Audrey just seemed to up the ante.

  They kissed deeply, passionately, loudly.

  "Okay. Then maybe I'll just go to bed."

  S
he placed her nearly empty glass on the coffee table and leaned forward to stand, but gravity slapped her legs out from under her and knocked her back to the couch. She burped and tasted acid in her throat. If she didn't make it to the bathroom soon, she was going to paint Al Sterling's leather couch with bile and old Ramen.

  When she opened her eyes again, the room had grown dim. The air was thick. The smell of rotten meat had returned, sending her stomach into a tailspin from which it would never recover. When she vomited, it felt like her entire stomach had squeezed its way through her esophagus. She covered the coffee table in watery slime and grabbed her stomach, preparing for another round, as Theresa and Audrey climbed all over each other like teenagers in the back seat of a Volkswagen.

  "I'm sorry..." she began, but finished her sentence with another loud groan, covering her feet in hot liquid.

  She was disgusted, embarrassed, angry with herself for not having the will to say no or the sense to know when too much was more than enough. Fireworks exploded in her head. Theresa and Audrey hadn't even paused. She couldn't see them very well with tears in her eyes, but she could hear them... grunting, moaning, laughing.

  Hey guys, she thought. Could we take a breather long enough for me to clean my puke off the floor?

  When her eyes adjusted, she saw what was happening and felt the familiar cramp in her gut.

  Theresa was naked, and Audrey was kneeling on the floor between her legs, hands and face buried between her thighs.

  "Do you like that?" Audrey asked. "Tell me you like it."

  "I like it," Theresa said. "Don't stop now."

  "Hello! Friend in the room! Very uncomfortable, sick friend!"

  "If you don't like it, get the fuck out!" Audrey hissed.

  "What? But... it's my apartment."

  Theresa grabbed Audrey's head and pushed it back down.

  This could never happen. I'm dreaming.

  The room was wrong. The light was wrong. The air felt like she was standing in the middle of a lightning storm.

  She heard a door creak open behind her, and she turned as the room spun and went out of focus. The pantry door had opened and someone was standing there, watching her silently. The orange ember of a lit cigarette glowed in the darkness.

  "Who... who is that?" Linda asked, trembling. "Who's there?"

  "Can you help me?" a scared voice asked.

  It was Melissa.

  "How did you get here? Why are you in my apartment?"

  "I need help."

  "Theresa! Audrey! It's her, the girl from the store."

  "Who cares?" Theresa moaned.

  "She needs help!"

  "Can't you see I'm busy?" Audrey shouted.

  "What the fuck is wrong with you two?"

  "You don't interrupt a girl when she's about to come," Theresa said, arching her back and letting Audrey continue.

  A cry escaped Linda's lips.

  "Are you okay?" she asked the girl. "What can I do?"

  "I can't feel the baby moving anymore."

  She'd said the same thing earlier, in the same defeated monotone.

  Linda tried to stand again and realized it was pointless. "Come here. Tell me what to do."

  Theresa breathed deeply, on the brink of orgasm.

  The orange spark flashed and went out as Melissa took another drag and crossed the kitchen floor.

  Audrey growled. Not what you'd expect from someone in the throes of sexual gratification, but something much deeper, lower, more guttural.

  "Please, come here, let me see you," Linda pleaded.

  "You shouldn't be here," the girl said. "No one should be here."

  The girl's feet left the linoleum of the kitchen floor and crossed over the bare hardwood in the living room. Linda shook her head and watched as green patches of mold bloomed on the wood and spread across the room. The walls had turned the ugly gray color of deep-set rot; cracks had appeared in the plaster and mangled, black vines climbed to the ceiling, weaving around one another like clasped hands.

  "What is this? What are you doing?"

  "Thank you for shopping at Dollar General..."

  "No! No! Get out! GET OUT!"

  "...please come again and have a nice day."

  Lightning flashed outside the window, giving Linda her first view of Melissa.

  It was so wrong... and so disturbing, that she was too shocked to scream.

  "I can't feel the baby moving anymore."

  And it wasn't moving. Good God, it wasn't moving.

  The baby dragged on the floor between Melissa's feet, hanging from an umbilical cord covered in buzzing flies. Melissa walked bowlegged to keep from tripping over her child... not as if it would have made any difference; there was no question it was dead.

  Its arms and legs had turned the pale gray of oatmeal; its neck was clearly broken, rolling around on the floor lifelessly as Melissa came closer. The baby's face was barely a face at all, more an empty skull with peeling flesh, like loose strings of soggy papier mâché clinging to old cardboard. Its nose was gone, nothing more than a gaping hole; its eyes were empty, dark sockets. The only life in those hollow caverns was the slow, steady trundling of thin, pink worms filled with blood.

  This time, Linda's voice didn't fail her. She screamed until her throat felt raw and her vocal cords tightened like snares across the bottom of a marching drum. Theresa joined her, harmonizing in the much lower timbre of her explosive orgasm.

  Only Audrey was laughing... a high-pitch wail that barely sounded human.

  She stood, wiped her face, and watched as Linda lost consciousness and fell to the floor in a puddle of her own vomit.

  "Sweet dreams," Audrey said as she walked to the door and stepped into the hall.

  Somewhere in her booze-addled brain, Linda heard the quiet click of the lock and offered a prayer to whoever was listening.

  Chapter 9

  It took Theresa several minutes to get her thoughts in order and figure out why the hell she was in her car. Her legs hurt from being cramped in the back seat and her right arm was numb from having slept on it. She sat up, peeked through the window, and realized she was still in front of Linda's apartment.

  "How did I get out here?" she croaked. "And why?"

  Her memories of the previous night were scattered and disconnected. She remembered walking to the Dollar General with Linda, remembered drinking rum even though neither of them had purchased any. What the hell was she doing in her car? Had she and Linda gotten into an argument? She climbed into the front seat and found her keys in the ignition, but after a brief search, she realized her cell phone was nowhere to be found. She groaned and put a hand over her eyes to block out the bright morning sun. She hadn't blacked out too many times in her life, but there was no other explanation.

  Theresa opened the door and stumbled into the empty street. After all the hours that had passed, she still felt intoxicated and queasy. She looked up and saw the Blackridge looming overhead, noticing for the first time how it blended with its surroundings. The old brick was covered in decades of grime; some windows had been broken and covered in plywood; weeds grew through cracks in the front steps.

  How did I not notice this before?

  Even the smell was one of decay: wet wood, soggy plaster, overgrown greenery... something less pleasant that reminded her of bloated carcasses along the freeway. Her stomach lurched and she swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. She had to go inside. Something had happened, and she needed to speak with Linda to find out what. If they'd gotten into a fight over Lenny, she'd have some apologizing to do.

  Goddammit, where are you, Lenny? she thought. You're not even here and you're still causing trouble.

  After a few deep breaths, Theresa climbed the front stairs and went inside.

  The lobby was chilly and cloaked in shades of gray. The lights were out; the only illumination came from what little sunlight filtered in through the dusty windows. It was nothing like she'd remembered, and she couldn't explain what could have hap
pened in the last few hours to precipitate such a drastic change in appearance.

  She shivered and wondered if her cell phone was worth the trip upstairs. She could go home, call from a landline.

  Who the hell has a landline? she thought. Even her mother had embraced the digital age.

  "Just go upstairs," she muttered, hating the sound of her own voice as it reverberated off the high ceiling.

  If something happened last night, surely we can talk about it.

  But what? Why can't I remember anything?

  She eyed the wide staircase, but recalled something Lenny had said the other night. The stairs didn't go to the seventh floor; the only access was the elevator. She scuffed her feet through a thin layer of dust, pressed the button on the elevator, and waited. She kept looking over her shoulder, thinking she was being watched, but the room was empty. Several times she thought she heard quiet footsteps, but it was difficult to tell over the hum of the elevator's motor. When the bell sounded and the doors slid open, Theresa jumped inside and mashed the button for the seventh floor, because everyone knows the more times you push the button, the quicker the elevator responds.

  She felt silly for doing it.

  The doors closed and the car began its ascent, but as it passed the second floor, the elevator shuddered and the motor squealed a mechanical warning. Theresa held onto the side of the car as she pressed the button for Linda's floor another dozen times.

  "I am not getting stuck in a fucking elevator," she yelled.

  The motor whined as the car shivered and stopped with a jolt.

  Yes, you are, she thought. Hope you packed a lunch.

  Before panic set in, the bell sounded and the doors opened. The glowing number on the elevator was a large green '3.'

  "That's great! Now what?"

  She took two steps into the hall and the doors closed behind her.

  Without the light from the elevator, it was nearly pitch black. Only several of the overhead lights were working, and even they did nothing to cut through the darkness. The hall was damp, the air thick. The smell of rot burned Theresa's sinuses and stung her eyes. There was a constant patter of water dripping from the ceiling and forming squishy puddles in the drab, moldy carpet.