Bleed

by Ed Kurtz

  “Lost a woman, gained a lump a’ meat,” he slurred from his seat by the men’s room.

  Most of Tiny’s patrons, regulars and moonlighters, chose to ignore the mumbling inebriate in the corner. Nearly every bar had one, and the only real choice anyone ever had was to pay them no mind. For the giggling frat boys out on a bender, however, Walt was providing free entertainment they could not turn down. The shorter of the two was built like a fireplug and sported an outmoded blonde flattop. His much taller buddy, a reedy kid with a splotchy, acne-ridden face, kicked off the festivities when he slammed his mug down on Walt’s table.

  “What’s this about your meat?” he chuckled.

  “Big as my head,” Walt explained without missing a beat. “Fucker eats rats.”

  “That so?” snickered the fireplug.

  “Came with the house,” he said, bursting into a gale of laughter.

  Splotchy and the fireplug regarded one another with apprehensive looks. The latter rose up from his chair, stood beside by the former. Walt reached over and seized the tall one by his wrist and hissed, “Wanna see it?”

  “No, man,” the acne-faced kid nervously stammered. “It’s cool.”

  “Maybe we can get it to eat a rat. You know, right in front of us, like that.”

  Walt’s face split into a maniacal grin as the tall kid wrenched his wrist free and both frat boys made tracks for the door. His laughter chased them clear out to the parking lot. It also annoyed one of the stone-faced pool players nearby enough that the husky man toddled over to Walt, his beefy hands curled into fists.

  “You want to knock it off?” the man roared.

  Walt managed to swallow his laughter, wagging a forefinger at the angry man.

  “I got a thing in my attic,” Walt babbled, “that’d eat you up.”

  “That right? Well I got an automatic in my glove compartment that’d ventilate your fucking skull, so settle the fuck down.”

  Walt’s eyes widened, his wagging finger went up to his lips.

  “Shhh,” he hissed.

  “Christ,” the man grunted as he waddled back to the pool table.

  The night dragged on in much the same way. Whenever anyone came within earshot, Walt tried to tell them about the thing in the attic. Those who did not simply dismiss him got either angry or a little scared. Eventually the husky, unshaven New Englander behind the bar came careening across the room to toss him out of the place. He was a bit rough about it—digging his knuckles into the small of Walt’s back and employing some choice words—but Walt didn’t particularly mind. He just ended up sitting on the concrete steps in front of Tiny’s, staring at his own car in the parking lot and waiting until he was sober enough to drive.

  After the better part of an hour had passed, he was still stewed. A little longer after that, the patrons started to stumble out of the bar and the red neon open sign went off.

  Walt stood up, swayed, and almost fell over. He steadied himself and staggered over to his car. Locating the correct key and getting it into the small, dark slot was a Herculean task, but he managed it and got into the driver’s seat. In front of him the steering wheel throbbed, but he knew it was only his impaired vision.

  “Goddamnit,” he grumbled under his ripe, alcoholic breath. He was in no shape to drive.

  He got back out of the car, locked the door, and started walking. It was six long blocks until he stumbled upon a dingy no-tell motel with a gravel strewn courtyard in the middle. I’ll sleep it off, he told himself. Just a couple of hours.

  The room cost forty dollars and there was a plastic baby buggy parked in front of the door. He kicked the orange monstrosity out of the way as he fit the key in the lock. It was much easier this time around. He smiled and went into the room, where he was instantly assaulted with a haze of stale cigarette smoke, body odor, and alcohol. For a second, he thought he had gone into the wrong room, but when he switched on the light, he found it empty.

  Walt shut the door and latched the guard chain. The room was nominally clean, but the smell was appalling. Still, he had to admit to himself that it beat that rancid meat odor permeating his own house. He lay down on top of the dusty comforter on the bed and was asleep in minutes.

  ***

  Long serpentine strands slithered up the sides of the bed from underneath, probing Walt’s body and leaving sticky pink trails everywhere they touched. His skin burned wherever they made contact with it, but before he could get away the tendrils were wrapping around his ankles, knees and wrists. Bound tightly, he bucked and writhed but it was to no avail. The throbbing entity under the bed had him and there was no escape.

  He could hear the loud thumping, like a colossal heart that was pumping gallons of blood at an ungodly speed. Then it stopped all at once and the room was dead silent for several long seconds before the moaning started. It sounded like the deafening creak of a tipping long ship, but it was more plaintive than that, more human. Equal parts rage and sorrow echoed outward, splitting his eardrums as the monstrous moan grew louder and louder. When the dozen or so thinner strands sprang up and two of them found his ear canals, he was almost relieved. He could feel the warm, clammy strands push deeply into his head as more of them wiggled in front of him, pressing into his mouth and his nostrils. Seconds after the worm-like appendages pushed into his anus, Walt found that he could no longer breathe. What would have been a scream was stifled when the rancid tentacles began digging into his eyes.

  ***

  He was already vomiting before he woke up. It was too late to staunch the heaving flow of it, so Walt was left to puke all over himself and the bed until it was done. His stomach ached and his throat felt like he swallowed a pinecone. The fresh memory of his nightmare lingered as strongly as the acrid taste in his mouth.

  Bent over like Quasimodo, he lurched to the bathroom sink, tearing his shirt off along the way. There was no toothpaste, much less a toothbrush, so he rinsed his face and mouth with tepid water several times over. He rinsed the shirt, too, and rung it out over the tub before putting it back on. The comforter, he decided, was not his problem.

  The good news was that he was stone cold sober now. He felt worse than he had in long, long time, but he would be able to drive home without endangering himself and others any more than usual.

  He retraced the six blocks to Tiny’s in a damp T-shirt, savoring the coolness of the faint, pre-morning breeze on his wet torso. He felt so good that he ran the air conditioning in his hatchback at full blast all the way back.

  Upon reaching the winding country road leading back to his outlying house, a light rain started to spot the windshield. He fumbled for the lever to switch on the wipers, momentarily forgetting where it was. He found it, turned it down, and squinted through the smears left across the windshield by the worn wiper blades. His mind drifted to his ever-growing to do list, not adding new wiper blades to the throng, and he worried about the multitudinous holes in his roof now that it was raining. Walt managed to lose enough concentration on the world outside of his head that he only noticed the deer in the middle of the road when he was less than three yards shy of ramming it.

  Jerking the steering wheel by way of reflex alone, Walt’s hatchback skidded on the wet road and spun ninety degrees before slamming into a thick old growth oak.

  ***

  Walt raised his head from the steering column. Blood ran down his forehead from a cut at his hairline. His eyes stung from it running into them. He sat back, wiping his face with his hands and moaning. When his vision cleared, he gazed through the windshield at the white steam rising through the rain from beneath the dented hood.

  He pulled the door handle, kicked the door open, and stepped out into the warm, sprinkling rain. It pattered lightly and rhythmically on the leaves that hemmed the road, like the stain on his ceiling, dripping down on the floor. His stomach rolled at the thought.

  Shaking it off, he crawled back into the car and shifted into reverse. He gently applied pressure to the accelerator and the engin
e growled, but the car refused to budge. Shifting back into park, Walt melted into the seat and glared out at the hazy columns of light extending from his headlights out into the wet, dark forest.

  The car, he expected, was likely totaled. Two options occurred to him: he could sit in it until morning, or he could walk home. He chose option two, cutting the engine and locking the doors. No more than ten feet up the ink black backroad, the sky opened up and drenched him with hard, fast rain.

  ***

  He smelled the sickening odor from the driveway; it hit him the moment he stepped onto the property. Combined with the persistent taste of vomit in his mouth and throat, it was nearly enough to knock Walt over. Once again shielding his face in the crook of his arm, Walt strode cautiously toward the house. The rain had abated somewhat, although it was still drizzling. His shoes squeaked on the porch steps.

  He was digging into his pocket for the house keys when a silhouetted figure stood up on the porch and approached him. Walt gave a frightened shout, stumbled backward and fell on his rump.

  “Christ, Walt,” Amanda said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He let out a long, labored breath and looked up at her.

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “It’s six in the morning. Where have you been?”

  “Sleeping off a bender. That all right with you?”

  He got back to his feet and rubbed his sore backside. His pants were as thoroughly soaked as the rest of him.

  “Did you walk? From town?”

  “No, just from where I crashed into a tree. About three miles back.”

  She gasped.

  “You crashed your car? Goddamnit, Walt! You drove drunk!”

  He sneered as he jammed the house key into the lock.

  “No, I did not drive drunk. I slept if off, just like I said. There was a fucking deer in the road, I swerved and hit a tree. The goddamn car is totaled.”

  The front door creaked open and Walt fumbled for the foyer light. When it came on, he turned back to Amanda and pointed at the crusty crimson wound on his forehead.

  “Thanks for your concern, by the way. I’m fine.”

  “Concern? You want to talk about concern? Three days I’ve been calling you. Three days, Walt! I’ve come by twice now. And not a word from you! Not one fucking word! What have I done, can you tell me that?”

  He glared impassively at her.

  “You’re the one who ran screaming out of here.”

  “You didn’t see it,” she answered.

  “See what, exactly?” Walt scrunched up his face and leaned against the doorjamb.

  Her face paling, she dropped her chin to her chest and shuddered.

  “That thing on your ceiling…”

  “What thing? The stain?”

  “It’s not just a stain, Walt. I watched it…eat a bug. A cockroach, for Christ’s sake.”

  Walt twisted his mouth into a crooked smile.

  “Come on, now,” he said.

  “It’s the truth! It reached out for it, swallowed it up. I saw it!”

  She hugged herself tightly. Walt couldn’t help himself. He erupted into a fit of wild laughter. Amanda was dumbstruck and more than a little humiliated.

  “I’m sure you saw it, sweetheart,” he said between snorting chuckles. “But it doesn’t do that anymore. It’s a lot bigger, now. It’s moved on to rats.”

  Her mouth dropped open like a door on broken hinges. Walt went into the house, his laughter trailing after him as he vanished from her view.

  ***

  Her eyes welled up as she turned the key in the ignition. She flipped on the headlights and the beams illuminated Walt’s front porch. His front door was still open, but he was nowhere in sight. The tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

  Her confusion was infuriating. Not only was she puzzled about Walt’s bizarre behavior, she was puzzled by what, exactly, was upsetting her more: his heartless attitude toward her, or her revulsion at the thing growing in that house. Somehow, she was sure there was a connection between the two, the house and the rapid deterioration of her relationship with her boyfriend. In nearly three years she had never seen him like this; never before he moved into the Gablefront cottage at the edge of town. As she backed down the driveway and pulled out onto the road, she wondered if she was ever going to see him again.

  ***

  Walt was still cackling when he seized a can of Stroh’s from the refrigerator and cracked it open. The cold beer felt marvelous going down his throat, washing the acrid remnants of vomit away. He licked his lips and gulped some more. When the can was empty, he set it on the counter and headed for the john. He noticed that the front door remained open and saw Amanda’s car dissolving into the darkness. He frowned. It occurred to him that he should care—about the door, at the very least, if not her—but for some reason he didn’t. He shrugged and continued to the bathroom.

  Inches from the bathroom door, something tickled the top of Walt’s head. He stopped and looked up, having momentarily forgotten all about the thing on the ceiling.

  One of its tendrils was probing his hairline, exploring the fresh, tender cut. He winced from the stinging pain and edged away from it. The stain was not much of a stain anymore. It looked much more like a massive slab of meat, as if someone affixed a thick raw steak to the ceiling. Walt curled his lips in disgust and hurried into the bathroom. He flipped the light switch and pulled his zipper down, and then he heard the loud, wet sucking noises emanating from the thing in the hallway.

  He paused, unsure if he would even be able to urinate. Then he yanked the zipper back up and peered out and up at the organism above him.

  With a frightened shout he fell back into the bathroom.

  The thing was indeed making sucking sounds. It sucked with malformed lips, hidden amidst the wriggling tendrils. Sucked at its own sticky gore, at the air.

  Changing. Becoming.

  Growing there, a ghastly red face.

  8

  “You look awful,” Nora said cheerfully.

  She came around the counter and shoved her grinning face close to Amanda’s. On her left hand crawled a black spider the size of a nickel. To Amanda’s immense chagrin, creeping, crawling things were something of a passion for Nora. Amanda arched an eyebrow and sneered.

  “Wow,” Nora exclaimed. “You really look awful. What’s up?”“Rough night,” Amanda croaked, ignoring the hairy spider that was now advancing up Nora’s forearm. Her voice was coarse and quiet, the inevitable side effect of having cried all through the night.

  “Walt?”

  “Yeah,” Amanda answered, noncommittally. Walt, sure—but also that thing, those tendrils…

  The thing was, Nora had never laid eyes on Walt, and Amanda couldn’t clearly put together why that should have been the case. She loved him, or at least she was pretty sure she did, and Nora was the best friend she had—it would only make sense the two of them would be acquainted, at the very least. Still, life was so much easier to manage with things, and people, neatly compartmentalized. And Walt was such a private and shy guy, far from prone to socializing and meeting new people. Part of his subtle charm? she wondered. Or a red flag I’ve been ignoring?

  The bell over the door jangled and a customer came in; an older man with stark white hair and a moustache to match. Amanda smiled at him, but he ignored her and went directly for the computer books.

  Amanda and Nora had opened the shop around the same time Amanda first began dating Walt, but they’d been close friends since college. It began life as a small bookstore they named In the Reads, but they now sold a host of useless accoutrements and knick-knacks just to keep up with the ample competition in town. Neither of them got rich, nor had they ever expected to. They got by, and that was enough.

  “He didn’t hit you, did he?” Nora said, leaning in conspiratorially.

  “No! Of course not. Nothing like that.”

  “Another girl?”

  “Not that I know of.�
�

  “Huh.”

  Nora looked stumped, as though physical abuse and infidelity were the only problems her mind could conceive. The white-haired man shuffled up to the register and slapped a thin paperback volume down on the counter. A collection of erotic fiction. So much for computers, Amanda thought as she smiled and rang him up. He paid in cash and left without a word. The women were alone again, and Nora still looked confused.

  “Is it over?” she asked at length.

  “I don’t know. I hope not. But…”

  Nora waited for her to finish, instead she just trailed off.

  “But what?”

  Amanda turned away from Nora, focusing on an endcap loaded up with novelty pens and playing cards with pictures of famous authors on the backs. But she did not see them; she saw the blood in Walt’s house, reaching out and snatching the cockroach for a midnight snack. Only now it was more than just a roach. At least that was what Walt said.

  It’s moved on to rats.

  He seemed so happy about it, like a proud parent. Amanda knitted her brow and returned her attention to Nora.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  9

  Walt got off the phone with the towing company and checked the clock on the stove. A quarter to two. Plenty of time.

  (Gurgling. Sucking.)

  I got you. Everything’s going to be all right.

  He flipped back through the phone book, moving from T (towing) back to P (pet stores and supplies). The tow truck was expected to pick up Walt’s hatchback sometime between three and five, so if he called a taxi now there should be plenty of time to get to the nearest pet store and back before the battered vehicle arrived in his driveway. A cursory glance at the list of pet shop competitors informed him that Georgia’s Pets on Mill Street would likely be the closest. He dog-eared the page and flipped back over to the T’s (taxis).

  Figuring it didn’t matter which taxi service he used, he called the first one listed: AAA Cab Co. He stressed that he was in a bit of a hurry and that he would need the driver to wait to take him back home again.