by Pete Kahle
Since my parents had died the same way the police thought I must be involved. But they couldn’t find anything besides my proximity to prove I’d done it, and they let me go.
The next evening, I got drunk and went to a tattoo parlor. I had wide open eyes tattooed to my lids. Given the artist’s willingness to tattoo someone so obviously smashed, I probably also got hepatitis, but that didn’t really matter to me at that point. I wasn’t going to trust to luck and cleverness to keep people alive anymore. My eyes would be permanently open.
Perhaps out of desperation, the monsters got bolder after that. Every time I rubbed my eyes or shaded them from the sun, I’d catch them reaching for someone. I lost three coworkers one night when the power went out and drenched the building in darkness. By the time I was able to get the flashlight out of my purse, they were dead. Spinning slowly in their office chairs, heads tilted back, mouths opened unnaturally wide like they were screaming at the ceiling.
I quit my job that day and hid away in my lonely little house.
Once a week, I went in to town to buy groceries with my dwindling savings and to visit the library. The monsters started to get creative. They’d kick lights to temporarily blind me or drop a book into a pile of dust so I’d be forced to rub my eyes. I kept those visits as short as I could and I tried to avoid attachments by even speaking to the same person more than once. It helped make people seem less real to me that way and I didn’t feel as guilty when the creature’s little pranks successfully earned them a corpse. And they managed a few during those years. I felt bad for the occasional sales clerk, fellow library patron, and random pedestrian. But I wasn’t ready to give up the last shreds of my life for complete strangers. That probably makes me sound like a selfish asshole, and maybe I am.
But when they managed to kill the librarian, I stopped going into town. I don’t think I exchanged more than a dozen words with her, but I saw her every week. She was kind and enthused about everyone’s book choice whether it was classic literature, pulp, or a how-to guide.
I wandered down the mystery aisle, and saw her. A gore covered creature perched on her stomach staring at me, bold as can be.
That’s the day I gave up. I left the books I had intended to check out and walked out. I went home, laid down on my bed, and stared up at the monsters. I couldn’t seem to muster the interest or energy to do anything else anymore.
# # #
And now here we are.
There’s a buzz. “It’s Ryan,” says a man’s voice on the intercom. The only person I see anymore.
I push the button that unlocks my door.
Ryan steps in carrying a paper bag. He sets it down beside the bed. He takes the empty water jug on the nightstand and fills it in the grimy, mold lined sink.
I hired him two years ago to deliver food for me. He’s the seventh person I’ve hired. One of them tried to steal my money and left with shotgun pellets in his thigh. Four quit or just stopped coming at some point, I don’t much blame them. And two of them are buried in my yard, victims of my monsters. Being bedridden, I’ve gotten pretty good using the internet and you can hire someone to do almost anything if you have the patience and the brains to see through scammers and cops.
Ryan sets the water jug beside the bed, a grimace of disgust at the sight and the smell of me crosses his acne scarred face.
I don’t mind. He’s been reliable for two years, works cheap, and has never tried to steal from me. Besides, he has reason for his disgust.
I hand him the usual envelope with his payment. He doesn’t open it, so I don’t have the opportunity to see his face when he sees how much money is in there. I hope he blows some of it on some kind of hedonistic vacation. Gets wasted or high and has sex with strangers every night. Do some of the shit I never got to do.
As soon as Ryan leaves, I release my bladder. It’s not really a conscious choice anymore, it just goes, so I’m glad he left first. Warm urine pools between my legs and soaks into the already wet mattress. It burns the sores on my ass and the tops of my thighs.
I want to close my eyes to shut out what my life has become. But I try to keep my real eyes open as long as possible after Ryan leaves, just in case they figure out my subterfuge while he’s close enough.
The monsters have started to cluster above my bed. Flocking. They don’t even pretend to hide in the shadows anymore. I think there’s anticipation on their faces. They know I’m dying. Goddamn vultures.
I reach into the bag that Ryan brought me. My usual case of Ensure beside a bright red can. My arms are too weak to lift the can so I pop the lid off the spout and push the entire bag over. I listen to the liquid glug-glug-glug onto the floor, spreading and sloshing around on the cheap fake wood laminate. The intense, sweet odor of gasoline cuts through the smell of my rotting body and the waste soaked mattress.
I close my eyes for a moment. As pathetic and limited as my life is, has always been, I’m still not ready for it to be over. I open my eyes.
They’re closer. Squished together like teenagers trying to reach the stage at a concert. Tiny mouths open to reveal bloody gums and graying teeth. Grabbing at me with those strange, bony, little hands.
I reach into the drawer of the nightstand and feel around until I find the only thing in there. A small box of matches. I pick it up and light a match. The monsters flinch. I watch the tiny flame. I let it consume the wood until my fingers start to singe, then I blow it out. That seems to make them more confident. Maybe they think it means I won’t do it. They start to reach for me again.
What will happen when I die? I know they’re tied to me somehow, but I don’t know how. Will they cease to exist? Find a new unfortunate to latch onto? Or will they be freed to roam untethered, killing at will with no one’s gaze to keep them in check?
If I can take all of them with me, it won’t matter.
I scrape the match against the box and the flame sparks to life. I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can and whisper, “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.”
Leigh Harlen lives in Seattle with her adopted family of rats and rabbits. Her fiction has also appeared in Literary Hatchet, Triangulation: Lost Voices, and Body Parts Magazine.
What Clayton Found
By Betty Rocksteady
If it happened now instead of then, I don't think it could have happened in the same way.
Kids can't keep secrets anymore. It would be all over the internet as soon as he found it, rather than hidden in a backyard shed. We had no cell phones to take pictures and send them all over school, where it would be bound to make its way into the hands of someone's parents. We couldn't Google it and find out what it was in a couple of keystrokes – although I guess even now the internet might not hold answers for us. Not exactly.
All these years later, I still only have the vaguest understanding of what it was that Clayton found.
# # #
I only saw it twice myself, but Clayton had it for at least a month. He was my friend Jacky’s older brother. Perhaps friend would be too strong a word. Our closeness was more through convenience rather than any true bonding, at least on my side. They lived down the street from me, the only other kids in the neighborhood. Once I started high school I pulled away from her, not wanting to be burdened by their family’s reputation.
We still met up in the evenings sometimes that spring. The weather was getting warm and my house was stifling. The promise of summer vacation was in the air and it was all I could think of, long days on the beach, long nights with nowhere to be in the morning.
In the meantime I was restless. There wasn’t much to do in our neighborhood and I went for a lot of walks. Jacky usually tagged along, whether I liked it or not. No matter what time I headed out, I always seemed to run into her.
It was near the end of May. The air smelled of lilacs as trees blossomed around us. Jacky was wearing the same shrunken pink windbreaker as last year, although it was too warm for it already.
“Larissa, I’m going down the clubho
use, wanna come?”
“What’re you going down there for?” We hadn’t been to the clubhouse in years. It had been fun when we were kids, but a dilapidated shed buried in the woods didn’t have quite the same appeal as it had once had.
Jacky’s normally dull brown eyes sparkled. “Clayton’s got something there.”
“What kind of something?”
She pushed greasy hair from her eyes, giving me a glimpse of a faded bruise on her wrist. Clumsy Jacky. She whispered to me, keeping secrets from the empty street. “It’s an animal, he found it the other night. We can’t tell my mom though.”
“He’s keeping an animal in that gross little shed? Why would he do that?”
“No... It’s not. It’s not a regular animal. We think it’s sick or something. He’s trying to help it. Come see it, okay?” She looked at me hopefully.
We had a big sheepdog at home and had gone through a couple dozen goldfish over the years. Jacky and Clayton had never been allowed to have any pets, not so much as a hamster. Over the years Clayton dragged home countless stray cats and dogs, but their mom never let him keep them. She didn’t like animals. Honestly, I don’t think she liked kids much either.
I had nothing else to do, so I followed Jacky down to our old clubhouse. I don’t think it would have changed anything if I hadn’t gone that night, but I always wonder what would have happened if I didn’t.
The path was muddy and darker than I remembered. The evening cooled down quickly. Jacky brought a flashlight and shone it ahead of us so we didn’t trip over any forgotten rocks or branches fallen over the winter.
The clubhouse looked even worse than I remembered. The paint was peeled and flaking, bright dandelion yellow faded to an ugly smudge. It looked ready to crumble to the ground. Without the trees nearby holding it steady, it would have collapsed completely. I could hear Clayton cooing to something inside, and the shuffling movements of something small scrabbling around.
Jacky knocked on the door. There was a long pause before Clayton opened the door an inch, his face the only thing visible. He squinted at us from behind his thick glasses. He looked from Jacky to me and back again, his face turning red.
“Jacky, I told you not to tell anyone!” His face was chubbier than the last time I saw him.
“It’s just Larissa. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you, Lis?”
I shook my head, “No, I won’t tell. What do you have in there?”
He didn’t answer. He let us in.
There was a flashlight and a small lantern illuminating the single room. Strange shadows danced on the walls, but it looked like Clayton had cleaned things up pretty well. All our old toys were gone and the only furniture was a long table. The objects it held were covered hastily with Clayton’s jacket.
He spoke quickly, not looking at me. “I was at Eric’s the other night and I walked home on the highway, where the heavy woods are. I heard it in the bushes, I was kinda scared at first but it sounded so pitiful. I thought maybe it was someone hurt or something.” His eyes danced behind his glasses. “I wrapped it up in my jacket and took it back here.”
“What is it? A raccoon or something?”
“No... It’s... I’ve been trying to look it up in my encyclopedia. I think it’s... I think it’s sick. Maybe. Rejected from its mother or something. I don’t know. Look.”
I never thought of Clayton as the dramatic type, but he yanked the jacket off with a certain flourish.
He had obviously taken great care in setting up the fish tank. It was a miniature forest of branches and moss, a handful of stones, and a ceramic bowl filled with water. I caught a glimpse of it scuttling away from the light and a cold chill ran through me. Clayton reached into the tank and I had to stifle a scream.
It wriggled in his hands. Everything about its body language seemed to screech stop touching me, but Clayton held it securely until it settled. It was about the size of a guinea pig, but hairless. It was almost translucent in the shadowy light, an unnatural dusky flesh color. I don’t know how Clayton could touch it. Its skin looked rough and slimy, as though it would slough away in your hands, yet Clayton cradled it lovingly.
I could see why they thought it was sick. It was incredibly fragile-looking with a tiny, emaciated body. The head was enormous in comparison, wobbling on a slender neck. It stared at us with large, glassy eyes. They were the only feature on an otherwise blank face.
I had the urge to slap it from Clayton’s hands and flatten it beneath my shoe. I was revolted by the thought, by the idea of how its strange pulsing body would feel as I crushed it. Like a slug, I thought. One of the big ones.
“Can I hold it?” Jacky asked. I couldn’t believe she wanted to touch it.
“No, I think it’s sick, I told you. I don’t want anyone else touching it.” He moved to put it back into the aquarium and it clambered up his arm. It was unnerving how quickly it moved, its strange oblong head bouncing. Its limbs were long and spidery, ending in monkey-like hands. It seemed to suction to Clayton’s shirt as it pulled itself along his sleeve, and it made wet sucking sounds as it attached and detached itself.
“What are you going to do with it?”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. I could see the lie written on his face even before he spoke. “Just keep it until it gets better, I guess. Then I’ll bring it back where I found it. I don’t want it to get hurt, you know, I should wait till it can fend for itself a little better. I’d like to figure out what it is, too.”
“It doesn’t seem that sick to me,” I watched as it crawled over him and I shivered involuntarily. Its eyes shone with an unholy orange light as it peered at me, and I got the uneasy feeling it could understand what we said.
“Well, look how thin it is! Maybe it’s not sick, but it’s certainly not healthy either. I’ve got to fatten it up before I release it. Give it a fighting chance.”
There was a jar on the table next to the tank and Clayton reached for this now, unscrewing the top and poking his chubby fingers inside. The creature on his shoulder made a strange chattering noise and my head suddenly pounded with pain. Clayton pulled a long, glistening earthworm from the jar and dropped it into the tank, and the creature darted after it. Clayton replaced the cover and I watched in horror as the thing tore the worm apart with its strange, delicate limbs. There was a slurping sound and I was shocked to see the worm disappear. I caught a glimpse of teeth nestled deep in the pads of its small hand-like appendages.
“Does it eat with its feet?” I breathed. It didn’t seem natural.
“Yeah!” Jacky piped up, “It was my idea to give it bugs to eat, and we couldn’t figure out where it was putting them at first! Sucks them right up, like a straw!”
I felt nauseated as I thought about it pulling itself around Clayton’s body by those little mouths. “I’ve got to go home.” I couldn’t stand being there any longer. It was grotesque and I couldn’t understand why they wanted to keep it.
“Wait,” There were beads of sweat visible on Clayton’s pasty brow. “You won’t tell, will you? Mom will make me put it back, and I don’t want anything to happen to it.”
“I won’t tell.”
As I left, Jacky fed it another worm.
# # #
I didn't see much of either of them for a while after that. The creature left a strange feeling with me. I didn't like to think about it. Sometimes, when I went to sleep, I saw it in the darkness behind my eyelids with its strange translucent skin and awful, wobbling head. The way Clayton let it climb all over him. I didn't understand how he could even touch it.
I stopped going for so many walks so I wouldn't have to see Jacky. I hadn't seen Clayton around school very often before and I saw him even less now. When I did catch a glimpse of him in the cafeteria one day, I was surprised by how thin he looked. I tried to push it from my mind, and I feel guilty for that now.
I don't know if I could have helped, but I certainly could have tried. Clayton might have listened to me.
> # # #
A few weeks passed. School was days from ending. Mom and I were visiting my Aunt Susan that summer, and I was counting down the days. She lived near the most amazing beach, and the city where she lived was a lot more exciting than ours, bustling with activity. I was hardly thinking about Clayton’s creature at all, until I came home one day to Jacky waiting on my step.
“Larissa!”
“Hey, Jacky. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I need your help, Lis. With Clayton.”
My stomach sank. “What’s going on with him?”
“I’m really worried. I think we can catch him before he heads to the clubhouse today – will you come talk to him, see what you think?”
“What I think about what?”
“I just think something’s wrong with him. I don’t know what to do. Please, Lis.”
Reluctantly, I walked down to Jacky’s house with her. We got there just as Clayton did. He looked terrible. His normally doughy face was pale and sallow. The afternoon was hot and he was sweating in his long-sleeved shirt, leaving damp stains beneath the armpits.
“Hey Clayton. What’s up?”
He looked at me suspiciously and I noticed the dark shadows under his eyes. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” I don’t know what Jacky thought I could for him. “What’s wrong?”
“Look at his arms!” Jacky said. He tried to pull away from her, but she grabbed his wrist roughly and hauled his sleeve up. I felt sick. His arm was covered in oozing, infected wounds.
“Lay off Jacky! It’s none of your business!” He looked at me, “and it’s definitely none of your business! You never cared before.” He tore away from Jacky and stormed off into the woods. I didn’t know what to say.
“What the hell happened to him?”
Jacky looked at me, her eyes wide and face frightened. “I think he’s feeding it. It got a lot bigger and I don’t think the worms are enough anymore.”
