by Aaron Dries
“Thanks for the comfort, Donald.”
“Go home. Throw out all the clothes you took with you—”
“Done. And my suitcase. I had my doorman burn them in the incinerator downstairs.”
“Good. Look, I’ve given you enough cream to drown yourself in. Put it to good use, okay?”
“Yeah. Drowning myself sounds like a fine recommendation right now.”
They crept through the carpet fibers, seeking darkness. They had no comprehension of where they were or how far they had traveled. There was just the new day, which brought further promises of blood with it. Soon they found the mattress, and there they ran wild, laying eggs in caves of resin and foam. It was their kingdom now.
Flesh beckoned to them. Once they reached the wall of meat, they would scale its height until they felt the throb of his veins. Then they would feed, blood shooting into their stomachs.
At first there was resistance from their cow. It relented in the end. It even attempted to exterminate them. Ha—could the bugs appreciate humor, they might have laughed. But they didn’t. Instead, they fucked and fed, growing fat in pools of useless pesticide.
5
Imogen Mann was twenty-five but looked younger. She wore thick, eighties-style glasses with plastic lenses—a simple fashion accessory, just one of the many things she had but didn’t need. Sighing came easy that evening. She didn’t want to be there, but it was too late to turn back now. Her visit was the climax of four months’ worth of e-mails; and now there she stood before the door of apartment 201. Nervous.
Her knocking startled her. It was the first real noise she had registered all day. It sounded hollow, as though the apartment had been vacated. It was a familiar sound, and one she was attuned to hearing. Imogen worked in real estate. She wondered if he even knew that. The door creaked open.
“Hi, Dad,” she said.
They sat at the dining room table, mugs of tea cupped in their hands. Behind them, the living room was devoid of furniture bar a single recliner, which was covered in a film of plastic. Imogen noticed that there were no curtains on the windows and that the only light was the afternoon glow from outside. Apartment 201 was cold and inert, unlike the tea, which at least was hot.
The room was like a hospital. Its morgue.
“What’s going on?”
“Well,” Robert began, “I’m on vacation—”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about all this,” she said, gesturing to the room.
“Oh. That.”
Imogen saw the two tiny white scars under her father’s left eye. She’d seen more on his hands when he’d wrung out the teabag. It made her wonder what was underneath the pajamas he was wearing. Did the pale network of scars and half-healed cuts extend up onto his chest? The thought made her shiver.
“What is it, Dad?”
Robert took a sip of his drink, distracted by the ring of tea left behind on the glass tabletop. “I should get some coasters.”
“What?”
“Bedbugs.” The word was flat.
“Bedbugs? Oh.” Imogen was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be. Not for me, anyway. I don’t deserve it.”
She didn’t like the way he was poised, as though he was waiting. The business about the bedbugs only made it worse, so she searched for another subject of conversation. “Mom’s business is going gangbusters.”
“That’s good to hear. Does she still hate me?” Robert put the mug down, smiling.
“Yes.”
“Ha. I admire your honesty. It’s good to see that you haven’t changed. I find that funny, considering all the lies around you.”
Imogen watched him reach inside his loose-fitting shirt to scratch the skin beneath. There were additional scars across his chest. “Dad, are those marks from bedbugs too?” She reached out and touched his hands, a gesture that, ten minutes before, she never would have expected herself to impart.
“I’m glad you came to visit, Imogen. But you’re going to have to leave now.”
She pulled her hand away. Edgy. She slipped off her glasses. “Dad—” But the sentence was over before it even had a chance to begin. That one word—Dad—was a storm of emotion and power, only it had blown itself out. Just more wasted air.
“I like you better without your glasses.”
It makes you look like the girl I fought for, he wanted to say but didn’t. Too corny. She’d hate me for it.
Robert tapped his watch instead. “You have to leave. It’s getting late and I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I’m going away for a while, just so you know. It’s up to you if you want to tell your mother or not. I’ll be in Thailand, maybe Cambodia. It’s just a ticket. That’s all it is.”
“Thailand? What? Why are you going there? Didn’t you just get back from Florida?”
“You need to leave.”
“But you hate dirt and fumes and, like, congestion—getting through the Lincoln Tunnel sends you into panic attacks. Thailand’s, like, the Third World or somethin’, you know that, right? And for a few months? Wait. What about your job?”
“Please, you need to go.”
“Why, Dad? Tell me, what’s going on?”
“You can’t be here after dark.”
“What?”
Flicking on the bedside lamp in the middle of the night and snatching up the compact mirror he keeps next to the bed. Putting it to his face and seeing the bedbugs under his eyes. Rushing into the bathroom in his underwear and picking up the razor from the medicine cabinet. A bug crawls under his eyelid.
Little red blood drops pattering on white tile. Torture tears.
They only ever come out at night.
Robert overturned both mugs. Rose-colored water ran across the glass tabletop and dripped onto the floor. Imogen bolted upright, toppling her chair; the sound of it striking the tiles echoed throughout the apartment. “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “Oh, Dad.”
Her father roared at her, lurching forward. His eyes twinkled beneath his scarred brow. “Out now!”
“Oh, fuck you, then! You want to scream at me, huh? Well, scream all you want. It’s all I’ve ever heard from you. I came here because I was willing to give you a chance.”
Robert clung to the kitchen counter, weakness threatening to overcome him. Hold strong, he told himself. Don’t go soft on me now. Get her out of here. He looked to the window, at the skyline behind it shrouded in smog and twilight. Stray memories came out of left field, spearing him, poisoning his mind with their sentimentality.
A birthday party. Imogen laughing, her face covered in a beard of whipped cream.
“If you love me, you’ll go,” he said.
“I don’t love you!”
“Stop it, Imogen. Please don’t say that. Not after all this. Don’t start lying now.”
“I’m not lying. You’re the liar. That’s all you’ve ever done. You cheat and you steal and you lie.” She was shaking so hard she struggled to put her glasses back on.
“Out—”
The ring that Robert had given his daughter on her eighteenth birthday tore a jagged gash across his cheek when she stepped close and slapped him. The moment she had done it, though, she began to falter, yelping, cupping her mouth. “Jesus!”
Robert fell to the ground as a familiar sickness reared its head. He could feel the pressure building inside him once more. His ears rang, stomach churning. “Go,” he murmured.
“Daddy, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean it.”
Robert didn’t blame her. After all, he was everything she’d accused him of. And maybe more.
She’s still a little girl, he thought. She’s honest and doesn’t lie. Robert could taste blood on his lips and licked them clean. And she’s got a swing just like Ruby.
Imogen reached out and touched her father’s shoulder. The moment her hand landed on the lapel of his pajama top, he snapped his head up at her. “Get out.” His palms slapped the floor; the folds of his pajama
top slid down.
There were more marks lurking under there.
She wanted to touch him one last time, to apologize for every bad thing she’d ever said to him, but didn’t, couldn’t. Imogen snatched up her handbag and ran from the apartment instead, leaving her father on the cold living room tiles, his silhouette a collapsing bulk against the window.
The city lights started to blink into life behind him, one by one.
She left the front door open but Robert didn’t care. He had no plans to stay in this place for any longer. Hell, he’d change his flight and leave now, or as soon as the blood stopped flowing. He could afford the cancellation fee. The open door spoke more of opportunity than it did of heartbreak.
Chapter Six
Tobias
1
Tobias was lying on his back, dressed in nothing but his underwear. The ceiling fan chopped through the steamy evening air, stirring the mosquito net. His bed was just a blanket thrown across a broken door propped up on concrete cinderblocks. A gecko scuttled across the wall, stopping to stare at him.
“Hallo,” he said. “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” His hands were nestled against the Samsung netbook resting on his sweaty chest. “Nicht? Schon gut.”
There were screams of laughter from somewhere down the halls of the run-down Hua Hin hostel; a couple were in the throes of an extended fuck session in the adjoining private room. There hadn’t been enough space in the dormitory across the street where Caleb and Amity were staying, and he could feel the ping of their absence rebounding within his chest.
Tobias thought that there was nothing better than finding people to travel with for an extended period of time. It relit a fuse that he was always worried was close to fizzling out: his enthusiasm. And their company was addictive, even though he knew that the inevitable separation would be difficult; Tobias had been down this road before. Someone almost always got hurt.
The sex continued to play itself out on the other side of the wall.
“Get it done, already,” he muttered in English, not German, which didn’t surprise him anymore. On the nights when his insomnia released its grip enough for him to sleep, even his dreams were in his secondary language.
If they’re still fucking in fifteen minutes, I’m knocking on their door.
And what are you going to say?
Tobias exhaled and rubbed his sore, red eyes. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going to get up, put on some clothes and confront them. That was some alternate version of himself, the version aspired to yet never reached. So he plugged his headphones into his netbook and kick-started his iTunes account instead. Music whispered in his ears; the voices of the Brit pop singers were his oldest and most reliable friends.
His cell phone chirped against his ribs, tickling him, and he smirked when he saw the caller ID. Tobias took off the headphones and wrapped them around his neck, where they continued to warble their tin-can melodies.
“Hallo, Caleb.”
“Hi. What are you up to?”
“Nothing. I’m sitting here in my undies.”
“Ha! Sexy.”
“Yeah, no. Not so much. I’m hot and the people next door are doing the fucking and the Internet keeps cutting in and out. Plus, I’m so tired but I can’t sleep.”
“I can’t sleep either. I’m in the common room downstairs, snooping around for something to read, but all I can find are more of those Fifty Shades of Grey books.”
“Oh, right. So, did you have fun today?”
“Yeah, but Amity’s sick.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, so I’m going to camp in with her tomorrow, if that’s cool. I really don’t like leaving her alone. So you’re flying solo.”
“Yes, sure. It’s fine. I’ve been traveling for three years now; I’m okay with being by myself for a day. Is she very sick?”
“Trust me. She’s worse for wear.”
“That’s sad. I got very sick in Vietnam on an overnight train a couple of month ago. I got off and I shit my pants.”
Caleb exploded laughter.
“It was bad,” he continued. “Very, very bad. I went to the toilet at the station and there was no paper in the cubicle! Oh-hhh, it was bad. I bought tissues from this little old lady outside who was making pho in a big pot. She gave me a couple of sheets and I was like, ‘Uh-hhh no, you’re not understanding how serious this is’. I had to throw away my pants.”
“Jesus, I’ve got tears in my eyes, Tobias! That’s incredible.”
“Yes, it is funny now. Not so much then. I wish Amity is feeling good soon. Fit wie ein Turnschuh. I hope you are also feeling fit.”
“Thanks, mate.”
The broadness of his accent stirred something in him, turning him on. But it wasn’t just that… He was intrigued by the streak of self-consciousness Caleb always tried so hard to hide, the blemish on his character that would rear its ugliness every so often, flagged by a telltale silence and a slight tilt of the head. It only made him more interesting. He assumed it had to do with his nose, which was a little out of joint. He wanted to tell him to not worry about it, though he knew he’d hate to hear it.
You have no idea how sexy you are. And that’s what makes you so sexy.
“Did you have fun today?” Tobias asked.
“Yeah. That cooking class was great. I don’t know what it was that made Amity sick, though. I’m feeling fine and so are you… Oh well, who knows? I just wish we could just go ourselves next time. You and me. I guess it won’t be long before you have to leave and continue on.”
“I won’t be leaving for New Zealand for a month. I’ll make sure I see you as much as I can. You two are so much fun to be around, so much better than Matt.”
“Christ, that guy. I wonder if he’s still off trying to score drugs from tailors with machetes?”
“Man, he’s such a crazy, crazy guy.”
“Well, good riddance, Tobias. He’s a bad egg, as we say back home.”
“Bad egg. I like that.”
“Have you heard from your host family in New Zealand?”
“Yes. They are so nice! They are going to pick me up from the airport in Auckland, and then they are taking me to the farm in Waiuku, I think is the name. But I do not feel like working, you know? It’s been so long. But I have got no choice; my monies is running low and I’ve asked my parents for the last time. They are very generous, but I think they are getting sick of me asking for help.”
“Tobias, you’ll love working again. You’re the kind of guy who makes the most out of things. Sure, it’s a bit of a reality check, but it’s still an adventure. And being on that farm, I’m sure you’ll get really buff.”
“Buff?”
“I mean, strong. Fit.”
“Yes, this is true. I have got chicken arms. I’ll look like the Terminator by the finish, yes? And then maybe I can come visit you and Amity in Australia, show off my muscles.”
“I’d like that,” Caleb said. “I really would.”
They talked for another hour—not stopping to think how much the call must have cost—through the moans coming from next door and the couple’s eventual snores; through the slamming of doors, the echoes of tourists stumbling home from the Soi Bintabath bars. Soon there was just the poised stillness that night brought, broken only by Tobias’s whispers down the phone. At a little after one o’clock, someone started to pluck at the strings of a ukulele. This normally would have annoyed him at such an hour, but instead, he found it soothing.
Sleep came. It didn’t last.
The outline of the door was a rectangle of light etched against darkness. There were no feet shadows along the bottom threshold, but the feeling that he wasn’t alone, that he was being watched, was asphyxiating. A predatory wisp of air slid into the room from somewhere cold and alien, clawing at his flesh. Tobias shuddered. The draft wasn’t just predatory, it was almost hungry—a parasite that lived only to chill those it wanted to immobilize, and then dominate.
Don’t be stupid, he told
himself. You’re imagining things. It isn’t cold and nobody’s there.
But something was wrong, something off. And the moment he realized it, the more it seemed that it wasn’t just the cool breath of air, nor the room itself or the hallway outside, that had slid off its axis—it was everywhere.
And yet nowhere.
Was that a sound he just heard, footsteps along the rickety hostel floorboards? His senses frosted over. Tobias knew he wasn’t making this up. It was real, as real as the makeshift bed he had been sleeping on, as real as the feelings he had for Caleb.
I’m not alone.
It occurred to him then: had the sound come from the floorboards in the hall or from those on his side of the flimsy hostel door? A word formed in his throat, quivering and small, fearful of its power because of the potential answers it might draw from the dark.
“Hallo?”
There was nothing—no affirming response, no apology from some drunken tourist stumbling home in the middle of the night and unable to find his room. Just unfilled silence, which, the harder he listened to, was not so empty after all. It was haunted.
A flower of sound, blooming larger and larger, emerged from the walls around him. Unseen children began to sing, their discordant melodies clashing together in a round robin that drove Tobias from the bed, sent him running to the door, into the hallway.
He stood there, rooted to the spot, panting marathon breaths. Sweat dripped down his face and beaded off his almost naked body, pooled between his toes. Whatever chill had violated his room was now gone, leaving behind humidity so thick it could almost be cut with a blade.
A moth swooned around the exposed lightbulb at the end of the corridor. Besides it and its monstrous shadow, there was nothing to seen. The voices were no more.
2
Amity watched Tobias order dinner for the three of them. Over the years, she’d relented to the repetitive blows of her deafness, and it was during moments like these, when people had to do simple tasks on her behalf, that she bore it worst. Humiliation was violent—a serpent swimming in the pool of her emotions, breaching the surface in the hope of air, and only then, as its lifeless eyes rolled white and it parted its jaws, would she see its fangs.
