Right, she thought. Rice paper walls, resident wildlife, the first flush toilets ever built. Who could ask for more?
She started to close her eyes again. They jerked open fast when the light went on. Top window. On the right.
That building was attached to the one she lived in like Siamese twins. The landlord told her it had been empty for months, waiting for repairs to be completed. Renovations were, as far as she knew, underway. Workmen would be hammering like maniacs in the morning, but who could be there this late?
She listened carefully. No water running. No usual bathroom noises. The light stayed on. It was far up the shaft, crowded by decades of dust and gloom, so she couldn’t see well but heard the window pop open.
She had the feeling someone was watching.
The moment she thought that, the light went out. The angle’s perfect, she realized, they can see me. Quickly she pulled an oversized bath towel from the rack and draped it across the tub. A sudden awareness hit hard: for the first time in her life, she was alone.
The silence was dense so when the light on the second floor to the right came on she jolted. Why am I not surprised? she thought. Like the one above, she heard the squeak and thud of the window opening. When the light went off, the blackness of the air shaft threatened to invade the room.
She waited, muscles tense. The bubbles had evaporated and the pink water cooled to an even more inhospitable temperature. Logic told her she was perfectly safe. No human being could fit through her skylight at the bottom of the tunnel. Besides, damn it, this was her bathroom, her apartment. She had her rights. She wouldn’t be intimidated.
Whoever was in the building had moved down to the apartment next door; she could hear through the walls. As expected, the skylight next to her own lit up, casting a sick glow that stuck to the base of the air shaft.
Sounds of sliding glass. A shadow on the tunnel’s grey wall. Movement above, then two eyes, laced with obsession. Barely human. Malevolent. Ancient as the darkness itself.
Celie grabbed the edge of the tub and, in one motion, vaulted up and out.
Glass shattered. Sharp chunks and slivers gashed her shoulders. She screamed.
It soared through the opening, wings extended, and tackled her, already shape-shifting. His weight pressed her to the slippery floor tiles. She gasped, suffocating in a womb of chilled flesh.
His breath, the oppressive smell of him, came hot and stinking against her neck. Then two teeth, sharp and quick, pierced skin, muscle and artery. She cried out, “No!”
Struggling didn’t help. She weakened.
Finally he sat up and flipped her onto her back.
“Bastard!” Celie screamed. His features were darkly attractive and generous, like her own. Well-defined lips, smeared with her blood, split into an intolerably boyish grin. He offered her his wrist, teasing her, but she was in no mood for games. Celie tore into his flesh with vengeance, taking back what was rightfully hers.
“Ow! Don’t be mad, Sis. Just missed ya, that’s all.”
FOR SALE
Jonathan Woodrow
The Realtor sat alone in his office and stared at the untouched cup of coffee on his desk. On the side of the cup was a picture of himself, right below a caption that read: “Springfield is Bob Hogan Territory”. Bob cringed and shook his head. He picked up his file for the Harvey family and shuffled the papers around aimlessly before closing it again and placing it back down on the desk.
There was a call from the front door. He pressed the button. “Yeah.”
“It’s Harvey.”
Bob buzzed him in and stood. Moment of truth. His stomach was tense. His head was tense. Even his feet were tense. And his forehead felt suddenly cold and sweaty. He was searching his jacket pocket for a handkerchief or Kleenex just as Mr. Harvey walked into his office and closed the door.
Much of Bob’s interaction with clients was under the pretense of hope. He was selling a dream, or moving someone from their current dream to an even bigger dream. Of course there were times when things weren’t working out quite as his clients had hoped, but Bob believed there was a positive spin for just about anything. All he had to do was find it.
But in the case of Mr. Harvey and his family, Bob was stumped for positivity.
Harvey wore scuffed Oxford shoes, rumpled blue shirt and charcoal sport coat, no tie. His hair was ruffled and his eyes were dark and defeated.
“You wanna sit?” Bob asked.
Harvey pulled out a chair.
“Drink?”
Harvey shook his head.
Bob sat down and picked up the file folder again. He resumed shuffling through the papers. “How’s Kate?” he asked.
Harvey’s expression didn’t change. Like something inside him was on hibernation mode. Bob was about to open his mouth to say something else—though what, exactly, he wasn’t sure—when Harvey beat him to the punch.
“Save it, please,” he said. “I didn’t come here for an awkward moment. I just need your help.”
Bob nodded and said with measured caution, “Okay, I’m listening.”
“My family’s been in a hotel now for six weeks. We have all kinds of expenses, debts. And as you know, Kate’s been in the hospital ever since... well.”
Bob nodded.
“Apparently our home insurance doesn’t cover demonic possession.”
Bob gave Harvey a wan smile. “And what can I do to help?”
“We’re in the red, Bob. Credit cards, lines of credit, all maxed. No nest egg. No family to help out. We need to move this house, now.”
Bob hesitated. “You know, with the current—”
“I know. We’ll lose money. You said that.”
“That’s right, but what if you allow the bank to foreclose?”
“Not an option,” Harvey said. “I do that, my business goes down the tube and we’re in the same boat as we are now.”
“Mr. Harvey, just so we’re clear. You want me to do, what, exactly?”
“You tell me,” he said. And then, “What are we looking at, worst case? I need a ball park number.”
Bob exhaled, looked down at the desk. “I’d say, current state of affairs, you’d be looking at a thirty per cent loss. Best you can hope for is you wait a while, maybe find someone from out of town who doesn’t do their research.”
Harvey shook his head. “Not good enough, Bob. You can do better than that.”
Bob opened his mouth but decided to keep quiet. Moving on the defensive wouldn’t do any good here. “Tell you what, leave it with me for today, OK?”
Bob had sold the house on Timi Valley to the Harvey family four months earlier. A few days after closing, he’d dropped by a housewarming gift. The gift was a ceramic rendering of a young woman, which bore such a striking resemblance to Kate Harvey that when Kate had noticed it displayed on the mantelpiece during their first viewing of the house she’d paused midsentence and stared at the statuette for several moments in total silence.
Convinced that the statuette had been a deal maker, Bob had approached the listing realtor after signing to inquire about buying the item from the seller.
Ordinarily, Bob kept a large box full of generic housewarming gifts: mantel clocks, hand-painted vases, faux-antique lamps—all bought in wholesale quantities, of course. But when he presented the statuette to Kate Harvey, he knew right away that his small gesture would pay dividends later on. Once again, Kate was entranced, and for three long minutes she caressed the doll, tracing her fingers over its delicate features, running them around the painted pale blue scarf and the long, red hair that cascaded down the statuette’s back and flicked playfully up at the bottom; all the while gazing into the dark, haunted eyes that somehow gave the piece a life-force of its own. If he was honest with himself, Bob had found the whole thing a little erotic.
And now, in the wake of all that had followed, this memory exposed raw feelings of guilt that Bob hadn’t felt in years.
After some hazy, unfocused consideration
, he began his research. For the rest of the evening he worked, digging and delving deep into the dark recesses of society, until he was sure he’d found what he was looking for. A lead. A potential buyer. He picked up the phone and dialled, but the voice that answered did so in a quiet, childlike tone that screamed at Bob’s lizard-brain to hang up and run... run like hell and never look back, just forget about the Harveys, let them deal with their own mess, it isn’t worth it... isn’t worth...
“Is this Bob Logan?” the pre-pubescent voice squealed in delight. “I was expecting your call.” And Bob knew it was too late for any of that now. This was way beyond the last resort, and there would be no turning back.
The next call he made was to Harvey.
The Blauhardt Towers was a gated community, hiding in plain sight, that placed a heavy emphasis on privacy. To the extent that very few people were even aware of its existence. There was no way the twin low-rise buildings could be considered, in a literal sense, ‘towers’. Not by anyone’s standards. But Bob understood that the word wasn’t used to describe the physical stature of the buildings, but rather its ability to sustain a powerful and gothic, yet invisible presence in a city that otherwise sought to know every little detail about its inhabitants. The complex was veiled by a tall and impenetrable fence, and lined by a thick circle of hundred-year old oaks. It was accessible from only one entry-point, and as Harvey and Bob approached, the twenty-feet tall wrought iron gates rolled open in a smooth, ominous motion and they caught their first full view of the understated concrete cuboids.
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor where they were greeted by the man who called himself Ginger.
“Welcome,” he said.
Harvey looked at Bob, who now regretted not prepping him a little on what to expect.
The apartment was indeed large, but the realtor in Bob was struck by how still and lifeless the interior was. Despite the massive bay windows, the light in the main room was dim, somehow drained, and shadows seemed to spill out of the corners and cracks in a way that defied the laws of physics. The unease that Bob was already feeling worsened when he sensed the almost tangible presence of pain and hopelessness, like they were entities in their own right, roaming about the apartment.
What caught his eye was an eclectic presentation of knick-knacks lined up on the dusty mantel piece, and Bob focused on this token of normalcy as an anchor to his sanity. But there was something off about the display. Each piece, he could now see, was damaged in some way. He walked over to the fireplace and leaned in to examine them more closely. On the far right was a stuffed animal with its left arm and part of its leg torn off, the cotton dangling over the edge; next to it was a gold watch with its face covered in thick black paint, and a strap that appeared to be chewed off at the buckle. By contrast, the flaws on some of the other items were barely noticeable, and took a moment for Bob to see. Resting against the wall was an early edition of a short story collection by Algernon Blackwood. At first, it appeared normal, but when Bob looked again, the book was missing thirty or so pages that had been meticulously replaced by slices of deli meat.
Bob heard footsteps and he turned to see a young step into the room. The girl held a coffee pot and stared down at the ground as she poured, not once making eye contact.
Harvey said, “So, is someone going to talk about why we’re here?”
Ginger looked at Bob and grinned. “Yes, Bob. Why don’t we get on with your pitch?”
Bob stood. “I’ll make this brief.”
“No, please,” Ginger said. “Don’t spare any details. I love the details.”
Bob continued. “Mr. Harvey and his family moved into a house that turned out to have... well... somewhat of an infestation.”
“Bob, did I somehow lead you to believe I offered an extermination service?”
Bob smiled, “No, that’s not quite—”
Harvey shook his head and stood. “Listen guy,” he said. “It’s simple.”
Bob placed a hand on Harvey’s chest, urging him to sit back down, but Harvey pushed him away.
“You want details?” he said. “I can do that. My family and I moved into a dream home that this guy here sold us. Turned out the dream was more of a nightmare. People got hurt. Things became quite public, and now we can’t sell the place.”
Ginger uncrossed his legs and crossed them again. He ran a hand over his smooth face. “Go on.”
Harvey took a deep breath. “It started in Cal’s room. Cal’s our little one, five years old. Well, he started crying in the night. Something he’d never done before. Not in, what... three or four years? He’s always been a great sleeper. And at first we chalked it up to the new house, you know. It would pass, eventually, once he got used to the new place. So we left it. But it didn’t stop, and soon he was waking up screaming three, maybe four times a night. I mean really screaming. Running into our bedroom, absolutely terrified, scaring the piss out of me and the wife. So she decided to put a motion activated webcam in there with him, you know, one with night vision, all that. Spent a small fortune. So that’s what we did. And when we played back the video.”
Harvey paused. Ginger’s grin widened and he leaned in. “Mr. Harvey, please, if you will.”
“There were shadows, at first. Lots of them. They moved around the room for no logical reason. The shadow from a the chair in the corner moved over to the window, inexplicably, and the street light coming in through the blinds slid down onto the ground and over to the bed. And then Cal... all sudden his face started, well, twisting. His mouth would open, wider and wider. Then you’d see his eyes snap open, awake, and he’d scream. The shadows would start swirling around, in a frenzy, and then his arms stretched out, his head fell back, and his face snapped from side to side, like someone was hitting him. Then the bed sheet somehow got itself all wrapped up around his neck like a snake. Choking him. Well, after that, he stayed with us, permanently, and the wife started looking through the Yellow pages for some kind of ghost hunter. You know, like in that dumb TV show? Well that didn’t work out too well, as you’d imagine. This is real life. She made a call to a bunch of places, and people started talking, and then we had kids climbing over our fence, trying to get a look at something... supernatural. I had to scare a few off my property with a shovel.” Harvey shook his head, as though steeling himself for the next part of the story. “And then things got a lot worse.”
Bob leaned back in his chair and tried to pretend he was somewhere else, but Ginger was completely captivated by Harvey’s tale.
Harvey proceeded to tell the story of the house on Timi Valley. He described the game of hide and seek that led Cal out into the busy street. He told them about the time his wife dreamed of being raped by the family dog, and then woke up to find the dog dead on the floor of Cal’s bedroom, having apparently chewed off two of its own legs before bleeding out on the rug. And then about how his mother-in-law had suffered multiple lacerations to her esophagus after eating what she’d thought were cookies but which turned out to be Peter’s pet tarantulas. He told of the time Peter, the eleven year old, had climbed up the chimney one night in mid-August after becoming convinced that Santa was waiting for him in there with a gift, and how he had gotten himself lodged up there for the better part of a day, barely able to move or breathe, until Harvey found him later on and pulled him down. Peter’s face and mouth had been covered in human bite marks and his hair was knotted with brown tinsel. Later that evening, Peter had confessed that he was in love with old Saint Nick, and that this year, instead of the usual letter, he wanted to send Santa a pair of his underwear.
Harvey explained how he would sometimes hear the house laughing at them; a thick, swaying groan that came out in giggles.
But the last story, the one that finally forced them out of the house for good, was the one Ginger was waiting for. As though all that other stuff was foreplay and this was the cum shot.
It was clear to Bob that his client was drained.
“My wife, Kate,�
�� Harvey said. “She’s currently in a coma.”
Bob shut his eyes. This was the part of the story he had experienced firsthand. Ginger’s excitement was audible.
“It was the day I first decided to go see Bob about trying to move the house. That was when the house decided to step it up a notch.”
Bob stood. “Ah, Ginger, does Mr. Harvey really have to go on. Surely you’ve heard enough already, no?”
Ginger’s smile faltered and he turned and stared at Bob. His eyes were alive with venom. They were the eyes of the predator who’s spotted his prey and is hard as a rock with blood and adrenaline, ready to pounce... only to be interrupted at the last minute by a mosquito buzzing in its ear. Bob sat back down again.
To his credit, Harvey seemed unfazed by the pleasure Ginger was taking in his misery.
“Bob and I met in a coffee shop to go over some details. We headed back to the house to talk it over with the wife, and the first thing I noticed was blood on the door handle. Then I saw blood on the tiles in the entry hall, and then there was blood everywhere.”
Bob shut his eyes and shook his head.
“As we made our way further into the house, it was all dark, but I could see there were... things, on the floor.”
“What things?” Ginger asked, his voice pinched, the two words coming out in staccato.
“Until I turned on the light I wasn’t sure. But when I did... I vomited on the ground. The hardwood was drenched in thick, sticky, dark blood. Spread out all over, not a square inch uncovered. And those things I’d seen on the ground, the shapes? They were pieces. Pieces of my kids, scattered about the place like old rubble. And then I heard someone whistling from upstairs, and the red I was seeing seeped into my head and I could see nothing else from that moment but the red, all the red. And I kept hearing something like a voice from behind me, calling my name in a distant echo, Harvey, Harvey, hey, Mr. Harvey. But it was way in the background, and the whistling was louder, more present. It drowned everything else out. Then I heard footsteps, and a figure started down the stairs, and it was chewing on something. Something thick and red with hair sprouting out of the top. Red hair. Kate’s hair. And the thing said, “Hi, honey, I put dinner on,” like an imitation. And so I lunged, driven by the red, and I was on top of the thing, hands around its neck, and I opened my mouth and roared like a lion, and my fists came down and down and down... until I was pulled off by someone... pulled off by Bob here. And all the red evaporated, and lying on the stairs all limp and lifeless was my wife, Kate, sweet Kate, and her face was dark and twisted and my children were screaming from the living room, screaming my name, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, and tugging at my leg, crying out for their mother, asking me what happened. As if I could tell them...”
Group Hex Vol 1 Page 5
