Unreal City

by A. R. Meyering

  Tormented by my jumble of furious, desperate thoughts and yearnings, I made it into the row of pines and away from the eyes of the world. Though there was a view of the freeway from here, it was quiet at last. The sun’s rays didn’t beat down quite as intensely while I was hiding in those woods. I took a moment to catch my breath and let my gaze fall to my shoes, so caught up in lamenting how poorly I had treated Joy that I became oblivious to the danger nearby. I didn’t have an inkling that I was being watched until I glanced up to see the heart-stopping, unearthly face of a creature I then had no name for.

  That was the first time I lay eyes on the nightmare that I would come to know so well.

  I YELPED. I couldn’t help it. That instant was like those moments in dreams when you realize everything around you is a façade, except I knew that it wouldn’t fade like a dream—what I was seeing was real.

  At the end of the narrow dirt trail sat a black-furred animal a little larger than a fox. I thought at first glance that it was a rather large cat, but its face proved me wrong. Those eyes were too bright and fiery green in color…and too aware. They were intelligent, sentient, and curious. Its skull was misshapen too, with a toothy mouth that curved up at a terrifying angle in an unmistakable grin. Its ears twitched slightly as it regarded me, those little needle teeth glinting all around its dark lips. It struck me then why the creature’s face disturbed me so: it looked human almost—a hideous crossbreed of primal, animalistic rawness and human understanding.

  In my horror, my foot slipped on the loose earth of the hill and I almost slid down the slope, causing my heart to pound even harder. My hand shot to my forehead as my vision refocused. That thing was really there. No matter how many times I blinked, it stayed there.

  Terrified yet mesmerized, I stared at that ethereal abomination as it did the same to me—that mocking, dangerous grin still stuck to its face. Then without warning, with all the grace of a feline and more, it turned its bushy tail, skittered down the path, and was gone. I watched it go, my heart slamming against my ribcage.

  What the fuck was that?

  I wanted to leave, to run away from that unnatural, ungodly thing, but I couldn’t. I don’t think anyone could have. How could I continue on as if that hadn’t just happened?

  It took me a good long while to take a single step down the path where it had disappeared. But after that gargantuan effort of courage had been taken, the steps that followed came with rising momentum. I remained terrified as I hurried around the narrow bend on the forest path after the creature, but I needed to know. I needed to at least see it once more, to ensure that it had in fact been real.

  The dirt trail began to slope downward to a little clearing. In the gulch below sat a large cement box with a square hole cut into it. I was just in time to see a little tuft of black fur disappear down into that hole. I knew what this place was. I’d heard the other students talk about it: Porter Caves.

  All too aware of my recklessness, I slid down the sandy slope and climbed with shaking legs onto the box. I could see the edge of a rickety metallic ladder dropping down into the dark, but even after just a few feet, I could see nothing but darkness so deep that anything below it seemed to have disappeared from the Earth altogether.

  “He-hello? Are you—is anything down there?” I’d meant to say anyone but it came out wrong. I waited, listening to the drumbeat of blood smashing rhythmically in my ears. There was no reply.

  The idea of climbing down that ladder on a cheerful day would’ve seemed daunting. I won’t pretend that it didn’t take me quite some time to pluck up the courage to peer deeper into the hole. I was stuck. It was the feeling of being so averted to an inevitable future, coupled with a sick, fascinated yearning in the pit of my stomach. As I sat there, getting queasier by the minute, I just knew that whatever was down there was the same creature that had been hiding in the trees this morning. I felt that same sense of a looming, unnamed threat. It was the thing that had thrown me the tennis ball—like it had been fishing for me.

  As anticipated, my fear gave way to anger and I threw my leg over the edge and began the descent into the dark. Halfway down, I fished my phone out of my pocket and turned on the camera flash to shine a feeble light down into all that dark. It came as a shock when the ladder turned flat and ran across the ground, and I stumbled with a little yelp, half-expecting something to start snapping at my sneakers.

  Shaking from head to toe, I at last hit the bare bottom of the cave. The chunk of light from the world above seemed too far above my head to keep up any illusion of safety. I turned around slowly, gasping in a lungful of the stuffy air. It smelled of dank earth and marijuana, increasing my nausea.

  “I saw you come in here. Where are you?” I tried to shout, but it came out in a pathetic whisper. I raised my phone with my shaking, grimy hand. Webby black plants that looked like veins hung from the cave ceiling and bits of discarded garbage floated around in the shallow, filthy pools of cave water.

  I turned in a complete circle, and my shoulders slumped. It’s gone. How could it just be—

  My phone light fell on a crevice to the side of the ladder, and I caught a glint of green. The cave went deeper. Balling up my fists and gritting my teeth, I approached the narrow passage that led deeper into the cold, moist earth on uncertain legs.

  “Come on out, you little shit. I know you’re there,” I snarled with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  The way down was tight and slimy, caking my hands and jeans in grimy clay. As I shone my tiny circle of light ahead, it caught the edge of a black, bat-like ear. There it was.

  I screamed, feeling my panic spike. I couldn’t get out; I was stuck down here with it and I couldn’t get out. I scrambled up the rocky slope and slammed my knee into the stone. It hurt so bad that I wanted to double over, but I needed to get away—it was just too damn close. When I turned back, sprawled on my back and trembling like a leaf in the wind, it was still there. It put an experimental, black paw forward and cocked its head at me, as if my terror confused it.

  “Wh-what are you?” I demanded, my teeth chattering.

  It answered me with unwavering composure, its voice echoing inside my skull. “Hungry.”

  An awful thrill shot through me, as if I’d been injected with poison that swept through my veins with every frantic pump of my heart. I braced my back against the cave wall, getting as far away from the creature as I could. I was too scared to run, too scared it would chase me.

  “Are you gonna eat me?” I breathed.

  “Not unless you ask me to,” it replied conversationally, yet with a hint of sadistic playfulness. There was no doubt in my mind he meant it. The creature—demon was the word I was thinking at that moment—laughed at me. His mouth never moved when he spoke or chuckled, but I heard it all the same, as if the intention was beaming into me like a laser.

  It was as if in that moment a window of fogged glass had shattered and revealed an entire world beyond everything I had thought to be true. And it wasn’t beautiful. It was petrifying. I wasn’t ready; no one could be. It’s easy to sit there and say you’d be ready to abandon the laws that dictate your world in lieu of something more exciting or fantastic, but when you’re faced with it, I know from experience you’d give anything to go back to that safety. That ignorant time before the shift became a comfort that I longed for—that I burned for, like a parched throat in the desert.

  I stared as he blinked those eyes that looked so much like gemstones backlit by a flame. “Forgive my glibness. I know I shouldn’t tease,” he apologized.

  My shivering hand drew the light away from him for just a moment, and when I lifted it he was gone. The bottom of my stomach dropped out as I searched frantically around for him in the crevices, until a tickle of whiskers on the back of my neck signaled that he was right behind me. I cried out, the sound bouncing off the walls as I shuffled backward, deeper into the cave. His smile broadened, amused by my reaction.

  “I am a familiar spirit, and I’m
here to serve you, Sarah Wilkes.”

  My mouth went dry. “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve known you for a while, now. I’ve been around almost always, and I’ve heard your name from many mouths,” the familiar said, padding silently closer to me with those terrible eyes glinting from the light of my phone. His eyes hurt to look at, like staring at the sun for too long.

  “You’ve been following me? Why?” I demanded.

  “Why, I’ve just told you. I wish to serve you. Believe me, I mean you no harm. Now please, no more questions until I eat. I’m hungry—starving. I haven’t eaten for months…have some pity.” He looked kind of pathetic, his warped face twisting into a bedraggled expression of longing.

  My brow pinched as I tried to think of what to do. A sympathetic part of me really wanted to give him something, but I was afraid of what might happen if I did.

  “This is a trap, isn’t it? If I give you something, it’s gonna come with some messed up consequences, won’t it?” My voice still trembled, but I had started to regain my composure. Fascination was rapidly eclipsing my fright.

  “No. In fact, if you get me some food, I’ll give you something very special…something wondrous,” the familiar hissed at me, his toothy jaws opening and making him look more cat-like.

  A strange experience flooded my head as he whispered the words. I had a vision—and I don’t mean that I saw anything with my eyes—but I could see it as clearly as if a film slide had folded over reality for a few seconds. I had knowledge of jewels hidden in the cavern all around me, glinting dully in the feeble light. They were unpolished, but thick and lustrous, and pulsed with their own luminesce. Yet as quickly as the echo of his words faded in my head, they too melted back into nothing.

  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” It was easily my biggest concern.

  “Because familiars cannot lie. It’s one of the inborn laws of our existence,” he said, as if this should be quite obvious.

  “There are others…like you? You have laws? Tell me them….” I coaxed, my fascination heightening.

  “There are eleven others like me, so far as I know. As for laws…I cannot disobey a command from my master. I cannot tell anything that is not asked of me. I cannot take what is not given to me. I cannot enter where I am not invited…the list goes on. Now, please, I beg of you—mercy. Have mercy!” he yowled, pacing back and forth, so very catlike now.

  “What exactly will you give me?” I prodded further, and he hissed at me, his fangs bared and his eyes blazing, sending a shock through my heart.

  “MERCY.”

  “All right, calm down!” I cried, fear rekindling in my chest. My shivering hands fumbled with the zipper on my bag and I fished frantically around inside until I found the granola bar I’d packed earlier that day for a snack. I tossed it to him gingerly, then my hands flew straight to my necklace and gripped. The familiar sniffed at the foil-wrapped treat for a moment, then looked back to me, the black slits that were his pupils fixed with unwavering precision.

  “Not this. I need something else—something more alive,” he moaned in a voice that was as demanding as it was tortured.

  “I don’t have anything else,” I admitted.

  “You’ve got hair. You’ve got skin. You’ve got nails…and lovely eyelashes, and eyeballs, and blood. Any of those things would be simply scrumptious…” he murmured, his long pink tongue licking at his jaws and his eyes narrowing to burning slits.

  I worried I might vomit. “You wanna eat—no way! Get away from me! Go on, leave me alone!” I shrieked, wishing he would move so I could escape from this miserable cave without having to touch the demonic little beast.

  Just as I thought it was going to turn into a struggle, he complied, slinking around me while tracking me with those bright eyes. He headed deeper into the cave, still watching me over his shoulder.

  “All right, Sarah, I’ll go, but you’d do well to remember how I’m suffering down here. Remember how I’m waiting down here for you. I’ll settle for other things, you know. If you happen to have a change of mind or heart, just set a bowl of milk outside your window tonight; that will do. Give me some milk, and I’ll bring you the thing you desire most in this world,” he purred, the hideous grin still fixed on his face.

  I squinted at him, halting my crawl out of that dismal cavern. “And what exactly is it that I want most?”

  “To escape.”

  I HOISTED MYSELF up out of the cave and over the stone block, then set off at the fastest run I could muster. My legs didn’t last long though, and I slid on the sandy pathway and lost my balance. Covered in clay and dirty water, shaking from head to foot, I felt like I was floating miles above my head. Whatever presence I had encountered down in those caves—familiar spirit, ghost, or figment of my imagination—the feeling of energy that surrounded it had dissipated. It was gone. I was safe for now, but I wasn’t sure whether it would come back looking for food.

  Blood.

  I rose to my feet with a moan and scaled the hill. The meadow seemed miles wide, and I staggered over to the bus stop to await the next ride back to Merrill. I must’ve looked as shaken as I felt, because the bearded student next to me kept glancing over. He opened his mouth to ask what I assumed was going to be “Are you okay?” but when my wide, frantic eyes met his, he looked away. His reaction sobered me, and I was reminded of something that had occurred the week after Lea died. My parents were both away that afternoon, and it was one of the hottest, stickiest days of summer. I had awakened late, around one, and right away the anguish had hit. The realization that Lea had been moving around, laughing, talking with me, lying on her bed and thinking—all just a week ago—and now was so abruptly and completely gone ruined any chance of a normal day.

  I had plummeted into one of the most acute bouts of sorrow that I’d ever experienced and ended up collapsing on the couch. I’d gotten it together long enough to know that I needed help, and called who I’d thought of as my best friend at that point. Annie had been watching some show—Supernatural, I think—with our other friend, Jess, but when I called them, they drove right over. I don’t know what I expected. They’d patted me on the back for a while, then just sat on the floor while I lay there, my eyes open and leaking tears. They stared, shaken by the intensity of my reaction.

  “What do I do?” I had croaked. They looked at each other, at a loss for words.

  “Stay busy, I guess. Just get your mind off things,” Annie suggested without any conviction, as if she knew the best she could do wasn’t very much at all. They were quiet for five minutes longer while I continued to cry, paralyzed and staring. Then one of them—I can’t remember who—started talking about the episode they’d just been watching. An excited conversation followed, all while I was rendered defeated in the darkest hour of my life.

  The memory of this kept me lucid on my way home. I couldn’t process what I’d seen just yet, and I stood in front of the towering, crimson-leafed tree back at the Merrill dorms like a child who had lost sight of its mother. I didn’t want to be alone right now, but the thought of talking to anyone made me sick.

  I escaped into the community room and threw myself into a chair. Attached to the ceiling were these little rainbow twinkle lights that shifted colors to create the illusion they were moving in a line. I watched the other kids go about their business. Playing pool. Scrolling through blogs and other websites. Exchanging stories with their friends.

  It all seemed so gut-wrenchingly meaningless, and it scared me that I thought so. What had I seen down in the caves? What had it done to me?

  I remained motionless in that chair until dusk, feeling shell-shocked and disconnected. However, I couldn’t ignore my rumbling stomach forever and ventured to the dining hall for something to eat, though I felt like I might retch it all back up afterward. As I stood in line and paid for my plate of mystery chicken and string beans, I thought about calling my mom and telling her what had happened. The idea was absurd.

&
nbsp; Most of the friends I knew from Monterey didn’t want to be associated with me now—I’d become too depressing after Lea died, and they complained I’d given up on life and resigned myself to being a downer until they couldn’t deal with me anymore—so looking to one of them to talk to was out. I sat down and poked at the food on my plate, trying to come up with a “step one”, and my eyes fell on the buffet line. There were cartons of milk stacked up there. Nonfat. One percent. Whole. A regular Smorgasbord of choices.

  …but you’d do well to remember how I’m suffering down here.

  And what if I did do it? What if I fed the little abomination? Would it cost me anything besides the perils of sneaking food out of the dining hall? If I set out some milk for him and he came back, at least I’d know that I was still sane, and that whatever was happening to me was beyond comprehension…or if he didn’t show, I’d know that I was certifiable and I should seek anti-psychotics as soon as possible.

  The thought of those ephemeral jewels glittering in the darkness beckoned to me, too. I wanted to see them again, or at least understand what they’d represented. That ghostly image was the only thing that haunted me as much as his revolting, hypnotizing eyes. I was tempted by the promise of something—what was the word the familiar had used—wondrous? It might be something earth-shaking, something that would allow me to escape the prison of malaise that my life had become. And it would only cost a carton of milk. If it’s there, why not?

  All right, Salem. You’re getting the works. I won’t skimp on your meal, pal, no sir-ee. I abandoned my half-eaten meal and plucked a carton of whole milk off the counter, glancing back at the front of the dining hall. The rat-faced man who monitored dining students sort of had his eye on me. That creep never stopped smiling and that smile only seemed to get bigger when he caught someone trying to get past his guard with extra food stuffed under their coat. I waited till he started a random security check on a boy stoned out of his mind, then stuffed the milk carton into my bag. It stuck out at an odd angle next to my computer. This was going to be a bit of a challenge. I sauntered up to the gate, trying to appear as bored as possible. Smiley Guy must have smelled the delinquency on me, though, and raised his hand as I tried to leave.