by Lee Pletzers
Her life wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was empty.
She was empty.
Stacey forced herself to sit up and take in her surroundings. She had to sort her shit out if she was going to get back on the street and earn some cash.
The room was sparse. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, with no shade to subdue its glare. A single, metal-framed bed was pushed up against the back wall behind her, its mattress thin and soiled. No sheets covered it. The top of the plywood bedside table was empty and an ancient, thread-bare easy chair sat beneath the window. Heavy brown curtains, hanging from floor to ceiling, covered the windows. They were thick and Stacey couldn’t even tell if it was day or night.
Her legs trembled beneath her as she used the side of the metal bed frame to pull herself to her feet. For a moment her head swam and the nausea flooded back. She bit down on it, steadying herself.
Taking a deep breath, she went to the door and twisted the handle. Nothing happened. Her brow creased in confusion. She tugged on the handle, then pushed. Her heart beat faster, the adrenaline firing through her veins. Was it locked? Has someone locked her in here?
For the first time, the thought that she might have got herself into something bad hit her. Her stomach tightened in fear. She had come across some Johns who had been violent before, leaving her with a black eye or bruised ribs, but it was only to be expected. It was practically part of the job. No one had taken it this far before.
She remembered the window. Crossing the room, she pulled back the thick material of the curtains.
A thin whine of fear escaped her throat and she stumbled back.
The tall window was completely bricked up.
Her hand was at her mouth.
Her fix. She was going to need her next fix.
That was the absurdity of her addiction. She could have been kidnapped by a mass-murdering psychopath, and the first thing that worried her was where she was going to get her next hit from.
Panicked, she ran back to the door.
“Hey!” She slammed her small fists up against the door. “Hey! Whoever is out there—this isn’t fucking funny!”
She listened intently, hoping to hear something, but there was only silence. Suddenly she realized she couldn’t even here the constant drone of traffic that was always so present.
Could someone have taken her out of the city?
She thundered her fists against the door again. “Open the fucking door!”
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry—it felt too much like giving up, like admitting that she was in some serious shit. Despite her admonitions, her eyes flooded with tears and she swiped at them, angrily.
How long would it be before the shakes start? Before every muscle in her body felt as though it was being torn from her body? Before she started vomiting so violently it felt as if her stomach was going to explode from her throat?
The thoughts terrified her. The prospect of going into detox was far worse than anything some psychopath could do to her. All she wanted was to get out of there. At least if she knew there was someone else around then there was also the possibility of getting out. Right now she thought she would rather be murdered than face going without her next hit.
“Hey!” She banged on the door again. “You got to let me out. I need to take a piss.”
She listened again, desperately hoping to hear something – anything! But it was like a void out there. The silence was absolute.
Her hands went to her face and she wiped at her mouth. Already they were shaking, but surely that was from the fear and adrenaline? It was too soon to start withdrawing.
Turning, her back against the door, she surveyed the room. Her prison.
Something caught her eye; a book was sitting on the bedside table. Her nose wrinkled. Was that there before? Her memory flicked back over and she was sure the table was empty. But she must be wrong, she just must have missed it.
Curious, Stacey walked up to the table and picked up the book. It was heavy in her hand. The cross on the front cover told her that the book was a bible even before she had a chance to read the words. She flicked open the pages and frowned. Every page, except for the cover, was bare.
A shiver crept over her, trembling its way across her shoulders and down her spine, like the hands of a lover. She dropped the book and it landed on the floor, split open in the middle, its naked pages exposed.
It felt as though the book was mocking her and she kicked at it, pushing it under the bed and out of sight.
Her mouth was dry, her lips stuck together. Her tongue snuck out, trying to wet them, but it was thick and furry against her parched skin. Suddenly her desire for a glass of cold water was almost as strong as her desire for smack.
Could someone have left a bottle of water in here somewhere? It was an unlikely hope, but still possible. She pulled open the drawer of the side-table, checked beside the bed, but there was nothing. Turning, she scanned the rest of the room.
She noticed something and her heart picked up a notch.
The curtains were drawn again.
Immediately she spun back round. Someone must be in the room with her, someone who was hiding? But the sparse room left no place for someone to hide.
It wasn’t possible. There was no way she closed the curtains behind her—why would she? On seeing the bricked up window she had run straight to the door. There was no chance she had taken the time to close the curtains again.
Had she?
Her mind was fuzzy from drugs and fear. Could she believe anything her memory told her, could she trust any of her actions?
A barked sob escaped her chest.
Her legs were weak beneath her and they gave way, the side of the bed finding her for support. It creaked beneath her slight weight and Stacey put her face in her hands.
What was happening here?
Someone must be playing tricks on her, it was the only explanation.
Then, from beneath the bed, something reached out and grabbed her ankle.
Stacey screamed and threw herself across the room, landing on the floor. She scrambled away, her feet propelling her backwards. Her heart pounded, her breath left her body in frantic, shaky gasps. From her position she could see beneath the metal frame of the bed.
There was nothing there.
Her mind tripped, jumped over a moment in time. She tried to escape into the darkness of oblivion, but she couldn’t forget the feeling of cold, dead fingers as they wrapped around her skin.
There had been something there. Something had touched her.
But there was nothing beneath the bed now, not even dust-bunnies shifted in the slight breeze her movement had created. And Stacey realized something else. The book had gone.
She needed to get out of there.
Stacey turned to the door and her mind swam in disbelief. Where moments ago she had been pounding on the cheap painted wood, now there was only smooth wallpaper.
Her eyes filled with tears of fear and confusion.
On trembling limbs, she crawled across the floor to where the door had been. On her knees now, she reached up. Her fingers and palms spanned the wall, searching for grooves and indents; something to prove to her that the door was still there, hidden beneath the textured paper.
But it was just an expanse of wallpaper; no hidden cracks lay beneath its surface.
No, no, no, no…
How could this be? How was it even possible? Someone was changing things when she wasn’t looking, moving things around.
She spun back round.
“Who’s here?” she screamed at the empty room. “I know someone’s here! Stop fucking around and show yourself!”
Only the silence and hollowness of an empty room answered her.
Her hands shook; trembling she recognized that was not caused by terror, but by need. Her fear had sped up her metabolism. Increased adrenaline, heartbeat, blood flow, had all processed the stuff through her system quicker than normal. And, like
in any moment of stress, she needed her fix.
Nausea suddenly rushed up over her, and she leant to one side and vomited onto the carpet. She retched again, dry and painful. A thin sliver of saliva hung from her mouth and, using the back of her hand, she wiped it away. Her skin was clammy and hot, her nose streamed clear fluid.
A painful cramp deep in her bowel doubled her over and she moaned in pain. It was a familiar feeling, the twisting of her guts, and its recognition brought with it despair.
Oh God, please, not that.
To be reduced to shitting in the corner of a room, without even a bucket to capture the waste. Somehow that degradation was worse than anything else that was happening.
But, for the moment, the cramp passed. Turning back to where the door had been, she placed both hands against the wall, her forehead resting against it.
“Please,” she begged through the wall. “I’ll do anything you want.” She was sobbing now. “Just let me out of here”.
With tears pouring down her cheeks, she turned her back on the offending wall and slid down, her face in her hands.
What had she done to deserve this? Why was this happening to her?
“I’ll do anything you want,” she yelled at the room. “Please…” Her voice broke as the tears took over once again. “Please, I’ll do anything you want me to.”
She would vow to rescind everything bad in her life if it meant she could get out of this fucking room.
From behind her came a ripple of movement—a strange shifting, ripping sound. Stacey froze; the skin on the back of her neck prickling. At first she was too scared to move and she buried her head in her hands, her hands clamped over her ears, shaking her head.
But she couldn’t hide from the sounds still coming from behind her; the horrific sound of sucking and stretching.
Unable to bear it any longer, Stacey pushed herself away and turned around.
Her eyes widened in terror.
Something was moving beneath the wallpaper.
Beneath the thin layer of paper something bubbled and bulged, moving across the wall. Were there insects trapped beneath? Or were they just air pockets, moving because of a draft or breeze?
Of course that was nuts. Watching the paper bulge out across the wall, she knew there was no way the movement was being caused by air pockets. There was something beneath it.
Like a new shoot breaking through the earth, a soft, pliable tube, filled with a dark red fluid, pushed through the wall, splitting the paper. As she watched, it divided and sprouted.
Stacey recognized what it was, but the setting was too abstract for her to believe it.
It was a vein.
More veins pushed through, and now sheathes of white, striated muscle followed, rippling across the paper, stretching and growing like fast growing fungi.
The veins split and then divided again, budding with new arteries and capillaries, spreading a network across the wall.
Stacey’s eyes were wide with disbelief. This could not be happening. She must still be asleep and dreaming, it was the only explanation. Yet she knows she is not.
The thick pulse of veins and arteries spread like fingers, creeping across the cheap wallpaper, feeding into the plasterboard walls. Layers of muscle wound throughout; thinner, striated muscle, divided by the thicker ropes of tendons.
And still it continued to grow, elongating, reaching, covering one wall and now spreading across the ceiling above her. The metallic scent of blood filled the air, and clogged the back of her throat like the taste of vomit. Flesh, raw and pink, bubbled between the muscle, filling in the gaps.
The whole structure throbbed at a rhythmic beat around her. It had a pulse.
The whole room was living.
She screamed again and her screams were echoed back to her, screams that seemed to come from the muscle and flesh itself. The flesh tightened and contracted around her, as if it could feel her pain, as if it were in a world of agony itself and was shrieking out its own torture.
Stacey clamped her hands to her ears.
Her terror had made her forget her nausea for the moment, but nothing could stop her hands from shaking, or her nose and eyes from streaming. She felt the steady throb in the back of her brain, that itchy, anxious need building up inside.
Despite the horror surrounding her, she was still held hostage by her addiction.
The flesh continued to spread. It was covering the opposite wall now, and still it grew.
Was she hallucinating? Surely, she must be…
A bubble of anger suddenly welled up inside her.
What the hell had that woman given her? That bitch! She must have given her something. The heroin must have been cut with some kind of hallucinogenic.
It was the only explanation; she was on some kind of crazy, strong acid. Yet Stacey wasn’t averse to taking hallucinogenic drugs. She had experienced them before and they had never been like this.
All around her the flesh pulsed and rippled. As she watched, something started to morph from the wall. Fingers pushed out from behind the tissue, coating themselves in flesh, tendons, and muscles. A second hand joined it. Arms followed the hands, reaching out. Everything was exposed, and it look as though the arms had been flayed, leaving the skin behind. A torso joined the arms; first the narrow, thin chest, then the concave dip of a stomach. Legs and feet stepped out. Finally a skull – forehead, cheekbones, and nose—pushed through the wall. Dull, dead eyeballs stared out.
Stacey screamed again and scrabbled away, but there was nowhere to go.
The figure started to disengage from the wall. As it pulled away, the exposed flesh grew a thin layer of pale, white skin. Starting at the fingertips, the skin crawled up the arms and chest, and up over its face. Long, mousy hair sprouted from its scalp.
It was a young girl, just like herself. Her hair was slick with vomit, her skin white and drawn. Bruises marked the inside of her arms. Even with the skin, her eyes looked too big in her head. The girl reached out a hand and opened her mouth in a silent plea of anguish.
Stacey shook her head in denial and ran to the one place she has ever sought comfort—the bed. Even though there were no sheets to hide beneath, she grabbed the thin pillow and clutched it to her chest.
But the girl seemed unaware of Stacey’s presence. As she took slow, unsteady steps across the room, Stacey felt as if she was watching a hologram. The girl reached the opposite wall and the wall of flesh morphed out to her, like a mother to a child, claiming her home. It wrapped her within its folds and, face first, she melted into the wall.
The girl sank back into it as though she was never there.
Stacey moaned in fear. What could she do? The flesh was all around her now, above her head, around all of the walls. It was as though she was trapped inside the body of a hideous creature and there was no escape.
She sat, hunched up on the bed, keening, and rocking back and forth. If only she could get a hit, then she could shoot up and sink into oblivion. Then whatever hell she suddenly inhabited would no longer exist.
She looked up. Was it her imagination, but did the room seem smaller now? Maybe all of the extra layers have made it appear smaller? But no, it was noticeably so. The walls were closing in around her.
She would lose her mind if it closed around her completely, if it claimed her the same way it had the girl. She squeezed her eyes shut and, when she opened them, the walls had moved again.
“Leave me alone,” she cried. “Just leave me alone!”
Like tentacles, some of the veins, arteries and tendons whipped out from the wall, thrashing their way towards her. Stacey shrieked and tried to clamber away, but she fell from the bed, the jolt winding her, and her teeth clacking together.
Still the things came at her and she continued to back away. They reached out, feeling their way towards her. From the wall behind her, the veins and tendons extended out and grabbed her, wrapping around her wrists and ankles. Their touch was slick and hot against her skin.
/> She screamed and fought against them, struggling like a fly caught in a web. They wrapped around her, tightening their hold. She bucked her body back and forth, but she was held fast.
Another tentacle lashed across her wrists, slicing her skin. In an instant one of the veins had plugged the hole. Pain speared through her and she screamed afresh, a new pitch of terror to her voice.
It was as though she had suddenly become part of the living substance around her.
The tendons and sheathes of muscle wrapped around her and squeezed. They were wringing her out as though she was plugged into a terrifying dialysis machine
