NOSTALGIA, PT. 2
by William Pauley III
Leila was awakened by the sound of a door latch snapping shut. Instead of leaping out of bed to investigate, she just turned over on her side and stared at the undisturbed pillow lying next to her. She sighed, and as she did a shiver ran down her spine. It was cold in her room, but she always felt cold without a second body around. She pushed her hand beneath the pillow and removed her cell phone. It was never more than an arms-length away at any given moment. She told herself it was in case of an emergency, but she knew the real reason…
She checked her phone. The screen was cracked, completely webbed over, but somehow it still worked. No missed calls or texts. No notifications. She opened a chat box, and under the heading "guy #3 from elevator" there were exactly ten messages, all from her. The last one was a desperate attempt to get Guy #3 to come over. At 8:35pm the night before, she had written: "What do I have to do to get you inside me?"
She stared at her words and immediately felt embarrassed. There was a weakness in her that sort of just took the reins once she reached a certain level of loneliness. It made the calls, it sent the texts, and every now and then it caused her to use her body in ways she never would have allowed in more sober moments. The words were trapped inside a bright pink text bubble and the longer she stared, the more it felt as if they were searing into her retinas.
Why wasn't he responding? she wondered. Sure, the last message was a red flag, she could see that now, but what was wrong with the first nine? A myriad of excuses flittered through her thoughts as she fabricated some storyline to help make sense of the situation. She needed everything to fit neatly inside some narrative, some spurious tale she could not only digest, but also deceive herself into thinking was true. She remained in the same position on her bed until she finally came up with it, the reason for his silence: He’s just busy. This is a good thing. If he was available every time I called, that would make him a loser, right? I don’t want to be with some loser. He’s just busy. This is a good thing.
She typed: “Hey there, me again. Just wanted to apologize for the text I sent last night. I had a few drinks and I was out of line. It won’t happen again. Hope you’re having a good morning! Maybe we can do lunch? <3”
While reading the text over, she cringed, however instead of changing a single word, she tapped send and quickly put the phone to sleep. It’s done, she thought, as if that was the difficult part, then at last pulled herself out of bed.
Her room was composed mostly of laundry, some dirty some clean, all of it on the floor. She weaved through the many piles with expert precision, despite being sightless from wiping the sleep from her eyes as she walked. The hallway was in similar disarray. She nearly tumbled as her foot struck a toy rocket, haphazardly placed on the floor directly in front of the bathroom entrance. She kicked it aside and pushed through the doorway.
Stepping into the bathroom, she was greeted by her reflection in the mirror hanging above the sink, and all at once, her optimism drained. Oh, the horror! Who is this person? She looks so… old. She examined her skin with a critical eye. She was only twenty-five, but already she looked to be at least ten years older, or so she thought. She pressed firmly against her cheeks and the tiny creases extending from the outer corners of her eyes disappeared completely. Her eyes were puffy and so dark she at first suspected she’d fallen asleep without wiping the makeup from her face. This is how I look now. Time is moving so fast, she thought. Without looking away from the mirror, she wept. She allowed herself to feel defeated for no longer than two minutes every morning. On this particular morning, she took the entire two minutes before finally running her bath. As the water flowed, she sat on the lid of the toilet and tossed the many plastic soldiers that were lining the outer edges of the tub into a little yellow basket sitting on the floor. She tested the temperature of the water, pulled her hair up into a tight bun, then stripped away her clothes. It was time to sink into a hot bath and forget about life for a while...
Minutes later, she dried her hands on the cloth shower curtain and reached for her phone. No matter how hard she tried to just lay in the warm water and relax, she couldn't turn off her brain. Something was eating at her. The Empty Bottle. He said he worked at The Empty Bottle.
She unlocked her phone and opened the Instabook app, frantically typing the words 'Empty Bottle' into the search bar and clicking on the first page to populate. She had to scroll through six pages of photos before finally spotting "Guy #3 from elevator." He looks different, she thought. He had a beard when she'd met him, but it wasn't present in the photo. The date on the picture was nearly a year old. Seeing him without the beard had her crushing on him even more. She checked the photo tags. His name was Terry Asher. He was a bartender. She clicked on his name to view his profile and sighed in relief upon realizing it wasn’t a private page.
She skimmed over his details: works at The Empty Bottle, didn’t appear to go to college, lived in Ireland for a year, likes to ski, travel, and hike, over a thousand friends…
She continued scrolling past the details of his bio, and once she saw the latest post on his page she let out a short yelp. That fucking bastard, she thought. He’s not busy! He went out last night! She continued scrolling. One of his friends had tagged him in a group of photos. They seemed innocent enough. Just a friendly gathering at some local bar. Maybe it was just a boys night out? She held her breath as she carefully examined each of the pictures, scanning every face, until finally spotting him in the background of one of the pics. She couldn’t believe her eyes. He had his arms wrapped around some other girl, and they both seemed… happy.
“Oh, fuck you!” she screamed, then threw her phone across the room. Her eyes darted back and forth as she thought about him out there with another woman. Are they fucking right now? Were they fucking when I texted him last night? She screamed again, then balled her fists around tufts of her hair and pulled until every last strand caught in her fist was ripped clean from her scalp. She threw her hands into the bath water and tried to steady her breath. As she calmed, the severed strands of hair made their way to the water’s surface.
Perhaps I’m jumping the gun, she thought. Maybe he went out with his sister or cousin or something… people do that, right? Not every girl that comes within three feet of him sucks his dick. That’s just not rational thinking. She looked around the room, trying to clear her thoughts. Yeah, but she was a lot closer than three feet…
She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, she had to or else she'd go insane.
She sat in the warm water, the severed strands of hair now clinging to her naked skin, and she stared at her distorted reflection in the chrome faucet, though in that particular moment it didn’t seem distorted to her. A girl this ugly can’t be too picky, she thought. Womanizer or not, I’m lucky to have found a man who is interested in me at all.
Outside the tub, lying face flat against the floor, the phone called to her. She could never quite explain it, but any time her phone was more than an arms-length away she became helplessly riddled with anxiety. Her phone was comfort. Her phone was home. That bright light radiating from her cell phone screen contained everything she needed for her mind to become calm. It was an escape. She was hiding, and there was solace in the hiding.
She turned her head and stared at it from across the room. All was quiet, save for the occasional drip of water falling into the tub from the leaky faucet. Stop jumping to conclusions, she thought. Stop making up situations that don’t actually exist. It’s his sister. It’s his cousin. Maybe his mom has really good genes…
All in one quick motion, she lifted herself out of the tub, ran across the room, picked up her phone–dripping all the way–then returned to the sanctuary of warm water. There was a trail of small puddles along the surface of the floor that traced the outline of her every footstep.
With one swipe of the finger, she was right back in it again, obsessively combing for any interesting information, something that would give her a better understanding of their relationship, or more accurately her chances of a relationship ever actually starting, and that’s when she saw it, his relationship status…
Betty Engleman. It was just a name, but that was all she needed. Her heart throbbed with such ferocity she could feel her pulse humming in the back of her throat. She felt sick. She felt stupid. She screamed. She couldn’t help it.
She carefully placed her phone down on the flat edge of the tub then sunk down into the water, fully submerging her head. You're a dope, Leila. You've fallen for it yet again. You're gonna die alone.
She wept…
Stop crying, you dweeb.
…until she became belligerent.
Stop. Now. Be stronger than this.
All at once, she raised up out of the water and her weeping stifled. She couldn't carry on like this. Two minutes, that's the rule. It's time to move forward. She caught a glimpse of her distorted reflection again and immediately scooped a handful of soap bubbles and covered the faucet with them so she could no longer see it.
Again she picked up her phone and scrolled through her list of contacts. There were literally hundreds of them, many without names. Anger seethed as her finger rolled over the many phone numbers. So many bad memories…
She scrolled until she found a name that wasn't attached to a memory. Joe ? was the first. There were many question marks in this list, but this guy was truly a mystery to her. Not only had she not remembered his name, but the entire memory of ever meeting this person had been completely wiped.
Perfect.
She tapped on his name and their final text conversation instantly appeared on the screen. She decided to only read the last few messages, as she was too nervous to scroll back too far. All too often, scrolling through old conversations proved to be a major trigger for her. The last few messages were all from her:
???
?????
????????
That was it. The final three messages. The end of their time together. That's not so bad, she thought. Seems as good a time as any to become reacquainted.
She tapped up a message and quickly hit send, again she was hoping to avoid overthinking. She typed: “Hey stranger… wanna get into some trouble tonight?”
It's working, she thought. I'm already over Elevator Guy. What was his name again? Who cares… so over it.
With her foot, she released the lever on the bathtub drain then stood up. Her wet hair felt heavy on her sore scalp, and it clung to her back and breasts until finally she leaned over and wrung away the access water with clenched fists. She grabbed a clean towel from the rack and wrapped her hair up along with it, pulled taut atop her head. She didn't bother to pat her body dry.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the body mirror across the room and she studied her reflection for a moment. I'm still young, perky… I'm fucking hot. Fuck Elevator Guy and his little bitch of a girlfriend. His loss.
She swiped up on her phone, opening the camera app. She snapped a few pictures of her fully nude body, trying out multiple seductive poses, then sent her favorites to another in her long list of contacts, a woman named Lynda.
Lynda lived in the building, another resident of Eighth Block. Leila and Lynda weren't really lovers, they were hardly even friends, as neither of them cared enough about the other to even check in or catch up. They only hooked up. Leila thought about their peculiar relationship. She never thought of herself as a lesbian or even considered herself bisexual. She was only attracted to men. Lynda, on the other hand, was certainly bisexual, and Leila felt a little guilty for leading her on at times, but justified their encounters by letting Lynda go a little further sexually than she was really comfortable with. Leila didn't mind making out with her, in fact she kind of enjoyed it. If she closed her eyes, it was kind of like making out with a guy, just softer. Same with Lynda going down on her, but she could never return the favor. She just couldn't get herself to do it. As bad as it sounded, Leila was only interested in Lynda for one reason: she was a warm body. That was it. That was all she needed. And Lynda was almost always available. She always responded to texts. Always. She was a sure thing.
I refuse to sleep alone tonight, Leila thought.
She walked into the kitchen and made herself a bowl of cereal. By the time she made it out to the living room and sat down on the sofa, her body was completely dry. She took a big bite of Wheatie O's and checked her phone. No response. Nothing from Joe. Nothing from Lynda.
Her mind buzzed, hurtling over varied excuses, scenarios, and explanations, trying to get a sense of where her day seemed to be headed. She was staring into space, barely chewing her food, then a bizarre noise snapped her out of her trance. A whistle, but not a normal whistle. It was comically loud and outrageous. It was coming from the television. A cartoon skunk was chasing after a seemingly horrified black cat. He took her in his arms and kissed her passionately.
She wept.
Just then, the front door of her apartment burst open and a small child, a boy, maybe four years old, ran inside, caterwauling.
"Mommy! Mommy!" the boy screamed. Leila placed the bowl of cereal on the coffee table and took the boy in her arms. She pressed him up against her naked skin and started rocking him in place.
"What on earth, child?" she said. "What did I tell you about wandering the building alone? One of these days someone's gonna snatch you up."
"A mean old man just bit my arm!" the boy screamed.
"A man did what to you?"
"He bit me on the arm! Look!" The boy thrusted his arm up into his mother's face. She examined it. The wound looked nasty. There were deep impressions in his skin where teeth had clearly clamped down upon it, along with three puncture wounds that were each trickling blood. Curiously, the wound didn't seem to resemble any bite she'd ever seen before. The teeth seemed too jagged and sharp to be human.
"You say an old man did this to you? Why?" She couldn't fathom a situation that would cause an adult to do this to a child. The boy wasn't much help. He just continued sobbing and simply shrugged his shoulders. Anger seethed within her. What could possibly have happened? Who could do such a thing to a small child?
"Let me get dressed real quick, then you're going to show mommy where this man is. Okay?"
The boy fidgeted and looked down at the floor, then shook his head.
"Honey, it's okay. You're not in trouble," she assured. "I just need to talk to this man so that this never happens again."
The boy looked up at her, tears still welled in his eyes.
"Okay," he said. "But it's a dog man."
She wasn't sure she heard him right.
"A what? A dog man?"
"He's a dog man."
She didn't know how to respond, so she just patted him on the head, then ran to the bedroom to throw on some clothes. Under her breath, she muttered, "What the fuck is going on today?"
A wave of dread washed over her as she stepped out into the hallway, she couldn’t quite explain it. Though she walked along these derelict halls nearly every day, there was something unmistakably different in the air now. Everything appeared darker, as if every bulb twisted inside the light fixtures had been replaced with torchlight, actual fire. The darkness seemed to waver in the dim light, surging forward and crashing into the floors and walls like waves of black ocean water, and receding just the same. Even the floorboards reacted differently to her step, as her foot seemed to sink into them ever so slightly as she walked, like foam, like bloated skin. She pushed forward, pulling her little one alongside her, holding his arm in a grip so tight she had to be either angry or terrified. Perhaps a little bit of both.
“You say the dog man is down this hallway?” she asked, still feeling a little silly uttering those words, dog man, as if they were living in some twisted cartoon. The child was still crying. He nodded his head.
“Right down there,” he said, pointing at an opening at the end of the hall. It was a doorway with no door, and it led them into another hallway, one she couldn’t remember having seen before.
“Has this always been here?” she asked no one, just spitting words into the air. She was sure it hadn’t. Eighth Block Tower had been her home all her life. She knew this place, and well enough she could provide a detailed blueprint of the entire building from memory in the event the corroded thing collapsed and for some god-awful reason someone actually wanted to rebuild it. This shouldn’t be here, she thought.
They were engulfed in near total darkness now. The only light came from a flickering bulb down towards the end of the hallway, just outside a gray painted door. She could feel the darkness crawling on her skin now, the same way one felt the cold. Her stomach was twisted in knots. Something wasn't right.
As she marched forward, she caught a glimpse of a dark figure moving through the light at the end of the hall.
“Excuse me,” she yelled. “Are you the one who bit my son?”
Once the child spotted the silhouetted figure, he wailed and fell limp. His mother quickened her pace, dragging him along the floor now. The figure did not respond to any of this, instead it continued to move closer to the light, and upon reaching it, the thing lifted its arm and took the flickering bulb into its hand, then it turned its head toward them and stared. It was female, Leila could see that now, but she wasn’t certain it was human. The thing was humanoid at least, arms, shoulders, head, torso and legs, but the skin… the skin wasn’t skin, it was slick and shiny and thick, like armor. If the creature was human, someone wearing a heavy, skin-tight costume, then the body inside couldn’t possibly be any larger than a skeleton, for it was much too thin. And all those eyes… glassy and cold, just like an insect’s. In the few seconds the thing stood in the light, Leila traced its body with her own eyes, searching for something that would explain just what it was, but she only ended up with more questions than before. Are those fingers? They don't seem to bend in any of the right places… What’s that protrusion on her back? Are those… wings?
The creature pinched the bulb in its hands, breaking the glass and causing a small explosion of electric sparks to shower down from the socket.
Then it was completely dark.
The child screamed in fright. Leila pulled him up into her arms and held him tight. She could feel a throbbing pulse repeatedly thumping against her breast and was unsure if it was the child’s heart or her own. Still she pressed forward, into the darkness.
“You’re sure the dog man is down this hallway?” she asked the child, but the fear and dread of the surrounding darkness only amplified the child’s screams. He could not hear her. She dug inside her pocket and removed her cell phone. Never more than an arms-length away. She activated the flashlight feature and the room instantly filled with blinding bright light. The hallway was empty now. The creature was nowhere in sight. Still Leila stepped cautiously toward the doorway at the end of the hall. If the thing wanted us, it would have come after us already, she thought. It’s certainly aware of our presence.
The door was wide open, and from what she could see standing outside it, the room seemed completely empty. She took a deep breath and mustered the courage to step inside, but just as she took that first step into the room, the insect woman rushed towards her. It all happened so fast, Leila could hardly process exactly what it was she was seeing. She could only focus on the eyes, those horrible insect eyes, those tiny black bubbles huddled together on her forehead, hundreds of them, all blinking as human eyes do, however independently and out of time with one another. Leila dropped her phone and in her panic, she turned and stumbled on her own feet. She and the child took a nasty tumble to the floor. Instead of making a quick recovery and pulling herself back up to her feet, Leila just laid there on the floor of the hallway, cradling her child, rocking him back and forth as they both grew hysterical. Panic had gotten the best of her. She couldn’t get herself to do anything other than sit there, waiting to die.
But they didn’t die…
After a few seconds of pulsing adrenaline, the panic seemed to fade. Too much time had passed. The attack never came. Leila pushed herself into a sitting position and looked back at the doorway. She was alarmed to see the creature was still standing there, but quickly realized she and her child were not in any danger, at least it didn’t seem likely anymore. The insect woman was much more interested in the cell phone than she was of them. She held it in her slick black hands and caressed it vigorously, as insects do moments before devouring, but she never devoured it. She just stood there in a trance, amazed by it. Leila wasn’t sure exactly what it was she was witnessing, but she took the moment as an opportunity to make an escape. She scooped the boy up off the floor and walked right by the creature, into the dark, seemingly empty room. The boy, immediately recognizing the room, somehow became even more hysterical.
“Is this it?” Leila asked. “Is this where you saw the dog man?”
“I want to leave!” the child screamed. “I want to go home! I want to go home right now!”
Leila took this response as a yes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice spoke to her, one she didn’t recognize. It seemed feminine, but it was deep and throaty and the words seemed to buzz as they were spoken. It was the insect woman. Leila wondered how its eyes worked, if they all focused on a single subject or if they could wander and take in their surroundings at large. She studied the beady things as they twitched and blinked. It seemed to her the creature was fully focused on the bright light shining from the cell phone.
“Who are you?” Leila asked. There was an acidic taste hanging at the back of her throat. Fear. She’d tasted it before, back when she was just a small child.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the thing repeated, then crushed the cell phone in its hands, applying pressure until the light finally gave and flickered out and all was dark again. Leila couldn’t see a thing. The image of her cell phone crumbling remained transfixed in her mind and it filled her with conflicting emotions. In a way she felt as if her entire life had been crushed, everything that ever meant anything to her was on that phone, well besides her child… however in another way she felt a great sense of relief, as if the crumbled remains were not a cell phone at all, but a padlock, and now that it was gone, she had been freed from her cage and could start anew somewhere without it. But that would have to wait, because at that moment she needed to figure out just what the hell was going on around her.
The situation confused her deeply. Adrenaline again pumped inside her brain. She was afraid, but unsure if the fear was justified or not. She only knew that she was indeed afraid. It was undeniable. What did this insect woman want? Is it really an insect woman? Could it be? And where’s this dog man and why did he bite my child? What in the actual fuck? Living in Eighth Block, you get used to some pretty weird shit, but this… this is too much.
“He’s coming,” the creature said from somewhere inside the dark. It seemed to be moving toward them. Leila backed herself into the closest corner of the room.
“When he gets here,” the creature continued. “You can’t let me see his light.” The buzzing voice was even closer now. Leila wondered how well those bizarre insect eyes could see in the dark.
Leila pushed her back against the wall and as she did she felt another body, one that wasn’t her child's, pressing into her.
“Calm the boy,” the creature spoke, directly into her face. The boy was completely horrified. There was no calming him. He was closer to fainting than he was to calming down.
“Who’s coming?” Leila finally managed to mutter. Fear had a tricky way of preventing words from ever leaving the throat.
The creature didn’t answer her question, instead she just repeated, “Calm the boy.”
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you are or if you know anything about children,” Leila said, starting to become annoyed by her request. “But you can’t just get a child to stop crying when they’re scared. You have to remove them from the situation first, then you can console them. Now with that said, I think it’s time I did just that…”
Suddenly the child went quiet, then fell limp in her arms. In a panic, Leila jostled the child violently.
“What the fuck did you do to him?” Leila shouted. The boy was totally unresponsive. The creature pressed itself even harder against her body. Leila threw up her elbow and pushed the thing away from her.
“Get the fuck off of me!” Leila shouted, even louder now. “Tell me what you did to my son!”
“He’s only sleeping,” the creature buzzed. Within seconds, the thing had returned and was again pressing its body against her. “Don’t let me see his light.”
Leila started to respond, but was distracted by movement in the doorway. Something else was in the room now. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and although she still couldn’t see much of anything at all, she could tell a faint difference between near dark and total dark, and total dark had just made its way into the room. It crept with unbelievable lightness, as if it was floating instead of stepping. She tried to follow it with her eyes as it slithered into the room, but only after a few feet she was unable to track it anymore. Total dark had moved into a sea of total dark. They were all in it now, swimming inside. Leila stiffened against the wall and breathed as if she was preparing to drown within it.
"Moriah…" a deep voice croaked, sounding almost exactly like a creaking door. This voice did not belong to the insect woman.
The insect woman’s fingers brushed against Leila's free hand then wrapped around her wrist. It pulled her hand up to its eyes and pressed the inside of her palm tightly against its face and just held it there. Leila didn’t fight it. Its many eyes vibrated against her open palm. Don’t let me see his light, it had said. His light… what light?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched whine, so high she could hardly hear it at all. She would’ve thought nothing of it if it weren’t for the fact that the sound was moving about the room. She heard it travel from the spaces picked up by her right ear to the spaces picked up by her left. She leaned into it slightly, hoping to pinpoint the exact location of the source, but it was imperceptible. She couldn’t tell how close it was, only what side of the room it was roaming. She suddenly became aware of the sound of her own breathing and made a conscious effort to stifle it in order to remain as quiet as humanly possible. Immediately her blood ran hot and she began to sweat.
The room felt impossibly large at that moment, as she couldn’t see the parameters of it, and even worse, there were no apparent hiding places. She felt like prey, like raw meat… like bait. Just then the whine seemed to rise in pitch, then it stopped completely, either that or it had risen to a point it had become totally inaudible to her ears. Somehow the absence of the whine made the room feel heavy to her, made the air thicker, harder to breathe. Whatever it was that was with them now, it was completely undetectable. Her heart raced as she fought off the urge to gasp for air. The veins in her neck throbbed.
That’s when she saw it. The light. But this was a different kind of light than she was used to—this was a cold chemical light, living and breathing. Luminous blue and white explosions rippled throughout the darkness like a fountain of sparks streaming in the wind, and when one wave of light started to fade, another would come to replace it, full force. It felt as if she was seeing an echo, in both its repetition and in the way that each wave felt mostly the same as what came before it, but also slightly altered. Imperfect. It was how she could tell it was alive.
Bioluminescence. Leila had remembered seeing something on television about it before. Whenever creatures dwell in darkness for too long, they’re forced to create light within themselves… or something like that. She couldn’t remember the details, only that the phenomenon mostly affected animals living inside the ocean. Still, they were far from any ocean… what the fuck is this thing?
Leila tried to make sense of the situation in order to get a handle on how to proceed. The insect woman didn’t seem to pose any threat to either her or her little boy. She reasoned that if the thing wanted to harm them, it would've done so right off. She also assumed the little trick it had pulled on her child hadn’t already harmed him. It said he was only sleeping, but who [and what the fuck] is it? Can it be trusted? He was breathing, at least, so there was that. And the other thing, the light creep, he seemed to be hunting the insect woman. As far as Leila could tell, there was no reason why she couldn’t just take her child and walk straight out the door, no consequences. Better yet, she could toss this Moriah—that was her name, wasn’t it?—right into the light creep’s arms and dart out the door all within seconds. That would keep the creep occupied on the off chance that perhaps he really would do something awful to them as well. But could I do such a heinous thing? she thought. Immediately, she talked herself out of it. Exit the room. Forget about the dog man. Keep better watch of your child. Just exit the room.
Leila started to pull her hand away, but Moriah tightened its grip. It was trembling now, and its slick hands nervously picked at the tender flesh spanning the backside of her hand until it began to rub her raw. Leila pulled away again, with more effort, and once her hand was free of its grip, she threw up her elbow and pushed back against the creature's breast, not aggressively, but as a defense. Moriah lost footing and fell back somewhere inside the darkness.
“Moorrrriiaahhhh,” the light creep spoke again, sounding more like a gasp than words. Liquid light sprayed across the black canvas of darkness surrounding them, all manner of reds, yellows and blues, every stud of light resembling a single brushstroke, and this living painting swelled in that moment, filling a good portion of the room, much more than any human ever could. Each burst of light grew as bright as fire, but quickly faded before suddenly reappearing again, as if the strange creature was moving through time, transmogrifying from one moment to the next. The thing seemed to be moving toward them now. Leila stared in hypnotic wonder.
She was snapped out of her daze by a weird sort of humming, flittering vibrations buzzing through the air. Her heart skipped a beat as, from out of nowhere, a weight was thrown into her. A body, something with slender shoulders pushed against her torso, with urgency, with violence, and it immediately knocked Leila to the ground, unlocking her arms and sending her child rolling out into the dark unknown.
“Get off of me!” Leila shouted. “Get the fu—”
A pair of clammy hands fastened down upon her mouth, but Leila immediately threw them away, then screamed as she kicked back at this unknown assailant. The darkness was never more terrifying to her than in this very moment. The strange buzz hummed sporadically as the two of them wrestled one another. Leila leaned up, and at some point while sparring she brushed against the backside of her attacker and was finally able to pinpoint the source of the humming: wings. Giant insect wings fluttered from the creature’s shoulders in quick, short spasms. Moriah! Goddamn Moriah!
“Leave me the fuck alone!” Leila shouted. “What is it you want with me?”
Her question remained unanswered as the two of them refocused their attention on the other threat lurking inside the room.
“Therrreee yooouu arree…” the light creep hissed, and was now standing so close that Leila could see Moriah staring back at him, bathed inside its ominous glow. A pungent aroma hung in the air, something akin to mold, seaweed, salty ocean air. Without quickening its pace, the creep continued to waft toward them, and as it did, the rolling winds at its hind cut through the room, settling inside Leila's olfactory senses in pulsating waves, triggering ocean memories to flicker behind her eyelids.
Moriah turned toward the light, causing every little twitching eye in its head to peel back and stare in wonder. Leila took this distraction as an opportunity to toss Moriah aside and escape the room. She pulled herself up onto her knees and crawled along the floor, thrusting her hands into the darkness, searching blindly for her little boy.
That's when it happened, the one thing that changed everything: the rattling of the cage as the light creep stumbled into the outer edge of it. The clattering of steel resounded throughout the room, like an air raid siren, alerting everyone within an earshot that things had changed, things were different now…
Moriah screamed an awful sound that could only be compared to the desperate yelps of some helpless creature, stricken and left to die on the asphalt after having been caught in the trance of dizzying headlights. It broke away from its bizarre stupor and lurched forward, attaching itself to one of the light creep's limbs. An arm? A leg? Leila couldn't see well enough to tell, but whatever it was, it immediately thrusted forward and sent Moriah somewhere far from the light.
Leila continued to pat along the floorboards, becoming increasingly more anxious with each passing second. Tears formed in her eyes. She felt them tapping against the backside of her hands as she crawled throughout the room. How far could he have gone? she thought. He was unconscious. He should be here. He should be right here…
A sickening sound cut through the silence, causing Leila's mind to run wild with thoughts of horror. A clanging, a banging, clattering steel echoed throughout the room, followed by intense wailing… Moriah… it had returned and was screeching, screaming, something awful, something wholly indecipherable into what Leila could only assume was the light creep's face.
"It's time to wake up, John," the light creep wheezed, ignoring Moriah entirely. He was radiating brilliantly now, filling the room with the brightest of blues—cobalt, cerulean, neon—so intensely that Leila's eyes immediately burned out.
A rhythmic snapping sound pulsed in Leila's ears as she sat blinded on the floor.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
She opened her eyes and to her surprise there was a large metal cage in the center of the room. The light creep was hovering over it, obsessed with whatever was trapped inside. The creep was large, easily twice as big as any man, and didn't seem to be anything other than a mass of swollen tentacles, wrapped taut in white gauze bandages. Leila wasn't able to discern a face, a head, or much of anything else. Light radiated from every exposed chunk of flesh, evanescent swirls of blue sparkled as light moved across his skin. Curiously, at the end of one of the tentacles there was an oversized claw, like the claw of a lobster, except blue in color—or was it white? Hard to tell in this light—and it was digging between the steel wires of the cage, clamping down firmly on each one until severing enough of them to release the door.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
As soon as the cage door swung open, Moriah lifted an unknown object high above her head, then came down with it upon the light creep in full rage. The creep didn't take too kindly to this and retaliated with its own violence in the form of oily phlegm, the color of antifreeze, and he spat it upon Moriah's waspish face. Leila thought it looked almost exactly like tower neon, the mysterious fluid that was constantly oozing out the veins humming behind the walls of the Eighth Block Tower. It seemed to glow under the creep's beaming body light. Once the fluid made contact with its slick skin, there was a sizzling that produced light-colored smoke, then Moriah fell to her knees in agony. The more it tried to wipe the phlegm from its eyes, the more it spread around. It finally threw the object in its hands, seemingly at the light creep, but it was way off mark. The object bounced off the wall beside Leila, then came to a halt on the floor, not even a foot from her hands. It was an object she recognized immediately, though now it was sullied, spattered in the light creep's blue blood. It was one of her child's favorite toys: his rolling wooden pull-toy pigeon.
Leila scanned the room, looking for her son. Now that the room was sufficiently lit, it didn’t take long before she was able to spot him. He was on the opposite side of the room, up on his feet, warbling back and forth drunkenly, as if in a daze. Whatever it did to him, it seems to finally be wearing off, she thought. She got back on her hands and knees and carefully crept around the backside of the creep, hoping to remain out of his line of vision. If she could manage to get to her child before anyone else in the room took notice of him, then she was almost certain she could get them both out the room safely. Just a sprint will do it, she thought. Get out of the room and down the hall and if they chase you, they’ll be in your territory. Nobody knew the Tower better than her, she was confident of that much. Get the boy and get out of this room.
With Moriah tending to its wounds, the light creep returned his attention to the cage. Leila could now see there was an old man sleeping inside it, nearly naked except for a pair of black cutoff shorts. He appeared dead at first, however every few seconds the man’s entire body would twitch and his eyes would open and roll back in his head, then close again. There was vomit crusted along the edges of his lips. His body was emaciated, starved, surely dying.
The light creep reached inside the cage through its open door and pat gently against the dying man’s cheek with the backside of his lobster claw. The man did not respond.
“You must be hungry…” the light creep hissed, then his tentacle rolled and once it straightened out again the claw had vanished completely. In its stead was now a fully-formed human hand, balled into a fist. When he opened this impossible hand, there was a plump insect flittering upon the surface of his palm: a dusty death’s head hawkmoth. It writhed as if it could somehow sense its fate.
At first, Leila couldn’t believe what she had just seen, however she quickly went to work mentally composing a list of possible explanations, as she always had, as she firmly believed everything could be explained. She could only come up with a single hypothesis: he must be a changeling. She paused and took a moment to reflect on this revelation. We need to get the fuck out of this room…
She was only a few feet from her child now, and thankfully in all his clumsy wandering he hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention to himself. Any second now she’d be close enough to grab him by the arm and pull him in close, then they’d be gone.
The light creep pushed the twitching moth into the dying man’s dry mouth, then forced him to bite down upon it by working his jaw with his hand. The moth was only partially inside the man’s mouth, and what was left on the outside was buzzing and kicking for its life. The man was too weak to swallow, so the insect continued this dance for a long time, long after the creature had surely perished. The creep took hold of the loose flesh between the man’s shoulders and lifted him out of the cage until the bag of bones was swaying before him. The man could hardly stay awake. His eyelids fell shut.
“John,” the light creep uttered. “Give them to me.”
The man lifted his head, struggling with the simplest of tasks. With his eyes half-open and his mouth full of crushed insect, he spoke the words, “Call me… Lieutenant…” Moth blood trickled down his chin.
The creep just laughed and repeated, “Give them to me, John.”
The man ever so slightly lifted the corners of his mouth until it resembled a smirk, then spent the next few seconds spitting bits of moth to the floor. This was his only response.
“The pages, John,” the creep hissed, growing impatient.
The man closed his eyes again, then dropped his head. “I was hoping you’d forgotten me. It’s been so long…”
“Do you wish for death?” the creep said.
The man managed to let out a short laugh. “Oh, I’ve been dead, Joe.”
“What about the girl? You wish her dead?” the creep said.
“The girl?” The man lifted his head and attempted to look around the room, but the creep used one of his tentacles to hold his head in place. “Moriah? Are you here?”
“You wish her dead?” the creep repeated.
The man took a deep breath and fell into unconsciousness again. The creep huffed then jostled the man awake.
“John!”
“Old Joe Booth!” the man shouted back at him, not even bothering to open his eyes. Saying his name aloud caused the man to laugh again.
“Where are the goddamn pages? The Bedlam Bible. The missing pieces?” the creep said.
At this, the man again opened his eyes, his head rocking slightly as he stared back at the creep. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking at that moment, if anything at all. He just stared, without fear, without emotion. Then after a few seconds, the man lifted his right arm until it was at waist level and he proceeded to fidget with an object fastened at his hipline. The creep raised his fist, lifting the man another foot away from the floor, seemingly to get a better look at the object, but by then the man had already managed to work it free. He lifted the object to his lips, a shiny brass horn, took a deep breath, the deepest he could manage anyway, and blew into it with all his might. A pitiful squawk burped from the instrument.
Without hesitation, the creep wrapped a swollen tentacle around the outer rim of the horn and instantly pinched it flat. The room fell silent.
“The pages, John.”
The man tossed the crumpled horn to the floor. “I told you, call me Lieutenant.”
Hearing this sent the creep into a blind rage. He wrapped four of his tentacles around the man’s neck and threw him down upon the edge of the cage with such force that it snapped his spine in two. At the exact moment she heard the sickening snap, Leila had finally crept close enough to grab her child by the arm and pull him to safety. Light bounced around the room in a frenzy, showering the walls in a wide array of colors, without pattern, without purpose. Beams of light shot from the creep’s every crevice, every wrinkle, as if he could no longer control it. Leila hesitated to go through with her plan, to grab the boy and run out the room. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t just do it. She tried to convince herself it was instinct rather than fear, but she knew the real reason. She wrapped her arms around her child and waited for the right moment to make her move. That was when she noticed Moriah, convulsing on the floor. To see her like that pained her heart for some reason. Leila knew deep down she was a softy. She couldn’t stand to see someone else in pain, as she was all too familiar with the feeling. Leila contemplated helping her…
Once the Lieutenant had taken his final breath, the light creep loosened his grip on the man’s neck, running his slithering tentacles over the lifeless, rawboned body. Leila stared at the man’s torso, the sunken skin, the protruding ribs, and wondered how long the man had been left to starve inside that cage. What an awful way to die, she thought, then continued tracing his body with her eyes. She could count each of his bones, if she wanted. She could see every last one through his skin, even from across the room. But what was that swelling there just below his sternum? There was an odd protuberance that certainly should not have been there. She wondered if it was some strange side effect, something brought on by the poor condition of his body, for surely it could have only manifested from sickness itself, what with its peculiar shape, hard edges and sharp points—nothing at all like typical bloating. It sat there like a thinly-veiled landmine planted firmly within the Lieutenant’s distended torso. As she pondered over what it could be, she noticed the light creep too had made the same discovery and was now staring at it in wide wonder.
His face. Leila could at last see the light creep's peeking, malformed face. It was nothing more than a series of deep slashes huddled together in some random spot along the beast's skin, unlike any face she had seen before. It was so distorted and unrecognizable that Leila was unaware at first it was any face at all, that is until she bore witness to the wet eyeballs twitching between the severed edges of two [of its many] slits, each of them widening in great surprise upon spotting the bulge at the Lieutenant’s stomach. She wasn't sure, but at that moment Leila thought she saw a single stream of saliva leaking from the corner of one of the other slits. It glistened under pulsating body light.
Leila eyed the door, then tightened her grip on her child. He’s distracted. Now’s our chance. She took one last look at Moriah, now balled up on the floor and barely moving, but could do nothing to save it, unless of course she put her child’s or her own safety in jeopardy. It wasn’t in her nature to leave people alone. She knew that feeling all too well, as everyone she’d ever known had left her alone. Her heart hammered in her chest as she thought of leaving her there to die…
The ends of three tentacles slithered up the torso of the emaciated man, then each of them, all at once, began morphing into a set of bony, elongated fingers. Once formed, the fingers tore into the man’s stomach, spreading the loose flesh apart like a thicket of cobwebs.
The man hardly bled.
He was filled with dust.
It was almost as if he was tearing into an old cardboard box. The air became polluted with little specks of dry flesh. The light creep seemed unphased by this, as he was focused on the hardened ball of gray paper now protruding from the man’s innards. With his dusty fingers, the creep picked the ball apart, separating each of the crumpled pages until they were once again separate entities. He stacked them on top of the cage, beside the shredded body, and once they were all accounted for, he pressed them flat, then folded them once at the center. Leila tried to read some of the words written upon the pages, but only managed a single sentence before the creep snapped the booklet shut: “And. I. Will. Live. Through. It. All.”
Then, all in an instant, the light creep was gone, extinguished like a flame caught in the wind, and the three of them were left there alone, in total darkness.
The front door to Leila’s apartment was thrown open as Leila backed aggressively into it. She was holding her slouched child in one of her arms and the other was fastened firmly to Moriah’s slick black wrist. She dragged the insect woman through the open doorway, into her apartment, and left her to rest on the living room floor. She laid her child on the couch, then she too collapsed upon it, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“This day has got to get better,” she said aloud to no one. Both the child and Moriah were awake, but neither were feeling well enough to move around much. Leila sat for a minute and caught her breath before getting up once again. She looked down at Moriah, who was still pressing the heels of her hands against her head of [now blind] eyes. Her entire body was emitting this low hum. Leila assumed this was a tactic it used to keep its mind calm, something to keep from screaming, something Leila herself had done many times in the past whenever things got a bit too heavy. Her heart ached for Moriah.
I can’t stand seeing her like this, she thought. I know just what to do. Alphabet soup. It may sound silly, but whenever I’m feeling this way, like I can’t catch a break in life, I always go back to when I was just a little girl, back to when my mother would make me a bowl of alphabet soup any time I felt sick, well… that is, before she married Logan. She reflected for a moment, then her thoughts returned to the soup. It’s more than just pasta noodles in tomato sauce. There’s real magic in those goofy letters. It’s a big bowlful of healing.
She lifted herself from the couch, stepped over Moriah, and made her way into the kitchen. The pantry was stuffed full of little alphabet soup cans. There was hardly any other type of food to be found at all. Leila removed a single can from the shelf and placed it on the countertop.
I wonder if Moriah lives around here, she thought, then sifted through a drawer full of cooking utensils, searching for a can opener. Maybe we can exchange numbers, see a movie sometime, have drinks… something. I know there’s a bit of a culture barrier between us, but we can still communicate with one another. That’s huge. And, you know, it might be fun to explore her unique perspective on the world. Get inside that buzzing head of hers. See what makes her tick.
She finally managed to locate the can opener and seconds later the tin lid popped right off. She emptied the soup into a tiny pot, then placed it on top of one of the smaller stove top burners. She became entranced by watching the pasta letters slide around and bump into one another inside the red sauce. Her mind ran wild, thinking of her new friend. We can go shopping together. Meet up for lunch. I wouldn’t have to eat alone anymore… She thought of her child. I mean, we wouldn’t have to eat alone anymore…
Tiny bubbles surfaced now inside the pot of red sauce, bursting in the spaces between letters. She stirred the soup with a wooden spoon and fell back into her stream of consciousness. Ooh! We can finally afford to get a massage cause we could book as a couple and split the cost! Not as an actual couple though, just as friends posing as a couple in order to get the discount… but is that so crazy though? That we could be a couple? I mean, she’s different, but she’s kinda hot. I’ve certainly been with worse… okay okay… stop, Leila. You’re gonna scare her off. Just be cool and see what happens. Don’t be crazy. Don’t be needy. Don’t come off as desperate…
She turned off the burner and pulled two ceramic bowls out from the cabinet. She set them down on the countertop, then proceeded to pour the contents of the pot into them, dividing the soup equally. She removed two spoons from a drawer and placed one in each of the bowls.
Be cool, Leila. Just be cool.
She took a deep breath then carried the bowls into the living room.
Thirty seconds later, the soup was no longer in the bowls. Instead it was splattered across the floorboards, dotting the furniture and walls, and settling between the fibers woven through the living room rug. Ceramic shards littered the floor, spanning the entire room, along with hundreds of little yellow pasta letters, huddled together in steaming clumps and spelling nothing of note. Leila couldn’t help but to drop the bowls immediately after walking in on the scene taking place in her living room.
Moriah wasn’t where Leila had left her. She was now over by the couch, convulsing on the floor. Her tiny, sharp teeth were stained pink from the blood leaking out of her mouth. But it wasn’t her blood. This blood was poison. The blood of a boy born inside the Eighth Block Tower. Leila screamed when she saw her lifeless child, forever staring into the spaces above him, but the scream was not enough to silence Moriah. That awful thing writhed about on the floor making the most god-awful screeching sound Leila had ever heard, and it continued like that for about another hour before, at last, it stopped and it never made another sound again.
NOSTALGIA, PT. 2
© William Pauley III, 2022
All rights reserved.
Storytime: "NOSTALGIA, PT. 2"