Methods of Madness

by Ray Garton

  “So where’d you pick this up, huh, kid?” He wasn’t too crazy about being touched, but he held still long enough for me to pluck some of the goo off his twitching face.

  It was slimy between my fingers… greasy…

  When I looked at the tear in the screen, I noticed larger chunks of the substance clinging to its frayed edges. The tear was bigger than when I’d seen it last, too.

  It looked almost as if whatever had made that trail had exited through that tear. Or…

  “Or,” I breathed, “it came in… through here.”

  Have you ever felt like you were suddenly no longer alone in a room? That’s how I felt. I’d felt that way before, back when I was a kid. In a decaying, abandoned house in the woods behind our school, Tommy and I had discovered a splintered wooden crate filled with faded, tattered pornographic magazines with pictures of men and women doing things to one another that I did not know were possible, let alone legal. (Come to think of it, they weren’t legal in some states at the time.) The very afternoon we found them, I went back after Tommy had gone home. I just had to be alone with those magazines… you know how it is when you’re ten. And right in the middle of being alone with those magazines, I felt it. That sense of not… being… alone… anymore… It was that feeling of being caught going through your mother’s purse, or your dad’s wallet, or your sister’s diary… I was afraid to turn around, afraid to breathe, for fear of seeing my parents—or, God forbid, my sister— grinning disgustedly because they’d caught me being alone with those magazines.

  Once again, I was afraid to turn around. But this time, I wasn’t sure why…

  Behind me, the cat meowed again, this time firmly, threateningly.

  Then he hissed.

  I closed my eyes a moment, imagining the cat behind me—and somehow I knew, I just knew, that it was standing on top of the woodpile—back arched, hair stiff and ears flat, eyes jet black above those needle-like teeth.

  I spun as the cat screamed.

  I caught just a glimpse of its tail whipping downward, disappearing into one of the black, jagged openings in the woodpile.

  The cat made another sound—an abrupt, final sound, like a sledgehammer falling on a squeak-toy—and then something else made a sound. It so resembled a thick wet gulp that I thought it was me.

  But it wasn’t.

  It came from the woodpile and, with it, came one more muffled sound from the cat; it seemed to come through a couple of thick feather pillows.

  Two more pieces of wood rolled down the side of the pile and thunked to the wooden floor. The entire pile seemed to shift, as if preparing to stand, then I was alone on the porch. Nothing moved. There were no more sounds, except the wind hissing through the screens. I didn’t even breathe for what seemed a long time, then I sucked in a sudden breath and staggered against a weathered old bookshelf I’d been meaning to refinish for a couple years.

  “Cuh… cat?” My voice sounded like rusty pipes. “Kitty cat? C’mon, boy. C’mon outta there.” I knew it would squirm out of the woodpile in a moment, looking around in that embarrassed way cats look when they get caught being clumsy.

  It didn’t. The longer it didn’t, the more I began to expect something else to squirm out of the woodpile…

  Setting my sights on the front door, I pushed away from the bookcase and moved carefully along the deck, resting my hands on everything I passed in case I needed something to lean on, but as I neared the woodpile, I froze up. I simply could not move. My eyes were locked on that woodpile and I kept listening, waiting to hear something from that damned cat, and when I didn’t hear anything, all I could think was, I don’t have any shoes on, and I kept staring at that woodpile—at those big gaps between the pieces, at the darkness inside—knowing I was going to have to walk closely past it to get to the front door.

  Run, I thought. But I couldn’t run; it was hard enough to walk. Instead, I stood there, staring at the woodpile.

  It shifted.

  Two more pieces fell to the deck.

  And then… it moved. The entire woodpile moved. Toward me.

  I tripped over a box of old newspapers as I backed away from it and nearly fell on my face staggering along the deck to the corner, where I made a wide, clumsy turn and stopped outside my bedroom window. The latch hadn’t worked since I’d moved in, so it was impossible to lock, but even from the inside, it was a stubborn window to open and from the porch, it was even harder. My weakened condition didn’t help any.

  In other words, the window wouldn’t open.

  The thunderous sound of wood tumbling over the porch came from around the corner as I pushed up on the window with trembling, white-knuckled fingers. When the wood was finally still and silent, I heard the sound I’d heard earlier while watching television… but now it was louder. Something heavy was shooshing over the deck toward the corner. First, a long ponderous ssshooosssh… then a moist gulping sound… then another ssshooosssh…

  I struggled with the window, struck the frame a few times with my fist, pushed, grunted, and—

  —whatever was around the corner moved closer.

  The window budged, then budged a bit more, but did not open.

  I stopped for just an instant, long enough to suck in a big breath, and glanced toward the corner, just in time to see it crawling—no, no, it didn’t crawl… it poured itself—into view.

  All air seemed to leave the porch as I stared for a long, deadly moment at the thing that jiggled its way around the corner, reflecting the sky’s dull light on its glistening yellowish-pink surface, which was covered with what appeared to be bruises—dark, purple- brown bruises—and long puckered scars that cut across its shapeless form, criss-crossing again and again. It was about three feet tall at its peak, but sloped downward into a shivering gelatinous mass with liquidy edges that darkened the wooden deck and tensed suddenly as the thing slurped forward, then relaxed to a breadth of about three or four feet.

  And at the end of that seemingly endless instant, the thing rolled forward, straight toward me, and I saw the meandering, pencil-thin veins—no, they were too tiny to be veins—they were miniscule, pink capillaries that covered the creature like a net just beneath its ravaged viscous surface—and my stomach roiled like boiling split pea soup.

  The window would open no further.

  I looked around my feet frantically until I found a small braided throwrug that had been lying crumpled beneath the window for ages, picked it up, shook it open and wrapped it around my arm. I had begun to perspire and the cobwebs and dustballs on the rug clung to my moist skin and made me itch, but I ignored it as I pulled my arm back and swung it into the windowpane, shattering the glass with a muffled clack.

  The thing was a yard away from me as I cleared away the jagged shards around the window’s edges and hoisted myself through.

  The floor was covered with glass and my feet were bare, so I had to throw myself from the window to the bed, where I landed in a storm of pain that covered my whole body, and then—

  —I realized what I had done. I turned to the shattered window and could hear the thing coming closer… ssshooosssh, buh-gulp… ssshooosssh, buh-gulp…

  I had given it entry.

  Trying hard to ignore my pain, I threw myself from the bed to the bedroom door and tumbled, groaning, into the hall, where I slammed the door hard and leaned against it.

  It would come in through the window, there was no doubt about that. But… what was it?

  A part of my brain spoke up; it was the part of my brain that spoke to me—in a sharp, sarcastic tone—whenever I started to overeat after a long bout of dieting. It said, laughingly, You moron. You know what it is. And you know what it wants. It’s been torn from its home… it’s hurt… it wants to move back in…

  “No,” I rasped, pressing my back to the bedroom door. “No, it… it can’t be that. It’s too… too big, I was never that big… “

  No, you weren’t, the voice chuckled, but who knows what it’s eaten on its wa
y over here? Who knows how many cats it’s swallowed…

  I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes tightly, groaning, “Noooo… “

  Something thunked in the bedroom, then it sounded as if someone were in there dragging a bag of sand over the floor…

  Running like a penguin because of all my sore spots, I went to the hall’s entryway and grabbed the recliner in the living room. It was heavy anyway, but in my weakened condition, moving that chair was a little like moving the whole house. Somehow, with a lot of grunting and groaning, I managed to get it in front of the bedroom door. The door opened inward, but I knew that thing would never be able to operate the knob. In fact, I really don’t know why I moved that chair in front of the door; I was scared and it seemed the thing to do.

  Leaning against the wall in the hallway, I heaved for breath, exhausted and aching, my eyes locked on the bedroom door.

  I heard tires crunch the gravel out front and turned to the open front door. Dear Lord, she’s here, I thought. But it was only the mailman stopping at my rusty box. I limped to the door, shut and locked it, then returned to the hallway, staring at the bedroom door behind the recliner, and—

  —I screamed and fell forward when my bare feet sank into something wet and tepid and so… squishy. I landed on the hall floor and, in the second before I began to crawl desperately toward the kitchen, I felt that snot-like substance move around my feet, as if it were being poured around my ankles, slapping against my skin and rising up around my legs.

  Pain screamed silently inside me as I clambored on hands and knees into the kitchen, stood and turned to see the thing oozing beneath the bedroom door, pouring out from under the recliner and spreading over the floor.

  I babbled something as I struggled to my feet, something that sounded, I suppose, as terrified as I felt, but I can’t remember what it was. I slammed the kitchen door and backed away from it, staring at the thin gap between the floor and the bottom of the door.

  I could hear it on the other side, swishing over the floor and against the hallway walls, gurgling and slurping…

  I felt numb as I looked around the kitchen frantically for something—anything—that I could use to…

  To what? I thought. To do what? What am I gonna do?

  Do what you always do, that smartass inner voice sneered. Feed it

  I laughed out loud. Yes, I was afraid—terrified—and that thought didn’t make me feel any better—in fact, it made me feel worse because it didn’t sound all that crazy—but I laughed because it struck me as being very funny, the idea of feeding my own fat; if it had scared me this much when I was a kid, I never would’ve gotten fat!

  I didn’t know what to feed it.

  Feed it the same thing you always feed it, that cruel voice said as I turned to the cupboard above the refrigerator.

  There was sluggish movement beyond the kitchen door as I opened the cupboard and scanned the selection of junk foods: Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s and Ding-Dongs, fruit pies and Slim-Jims and candied nuts… there was even a big bag of Lay’s sour cream and onion potato chips.

  There they were… all my friends… lined up in the cupboard waiting to be chosen…

  For just a moment, I didn’t hear that thing outside the kitchen any longer; I heard, instead, the Batman theme from the television in the living room, and I looked at all those things in the cupboard, thinking of how very good they had always tasted in front of the television… and how good they might taste there again…

  Then it slammed against the door.

  The slurping sound that followed was thick and slow, but showed no sign of stopping. On tiptoes, I swept my arm through the cupboard and scooped the junkfood onto the floor. I bent down and began stuffing the Ho-Ho’s and Ding-Dong’s and fruit pies into the baggy pockets of my robe, unwrapping the last two I picked up as—

  —the thing oozed around the corner of the stove and began pouring itself toward me.

  I threw the two Ho-Ho’s and they hit the thing with a phlegmy slap. It stopped, seemed to flinch, then folded itself slowly over the two treats and sucked them loudly into its middle as—

  —I reached up and grabbed the potato chips as I backed into the sewing room—no, I don’t sew, but the old lady I rented the house from called it a sewing room, so I called it a sewing room—ripped the bag open and scattered the chips over the kitchen floor. In the sewing room, I slammed the door and staggered back against the wall nearly tripping over a bucket of nails as I gasped for breath. I could feel my heartbeat in my ankles. My fear was made even worse by the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing in there! It would no doubt come oozing under the door any minute. Then what?

  The sewing room opened onto the laundry room, which was small, cramped, and had only a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Besides the door, the only way out of the laundry room was through a small rectangular window above the washer and dryer (the stacked kind, small and compact, with the dryer on top of the washer).

  I got an idea.

  Lying along the wall on the far side of the laundry room were some old baseboards I’d replaced when I first moved in; there was a bucket of nails at my feet and a hammer hanging on the sewing room wall. If I could get the thing into the laundry room, I could nail a baseboard over the gap below the door and leave it there until after Mardee had gone. Then I could… whatever.

  Feeling like a walking bruise, I waddled hurriedly into the laundry room, grabbed one of the boards and took it back into the sewing room, then began emptying my pockets of junkfood, unwrapping each one and leaving a trail of Ding-Dongs, Ho-Ho’s, fruit pies and Slim-Jims back into the laundry room. The plastic wrapping was stubborn and I had to pull and bite each one before they tore open.

  Then, at the very moment I head a horrible gushing sound in the sewing room, I realized—in much the same way I realized that I’d created an opening for the thing to get into the house—that I had nowhere to go. I had cornered myself in the laundry room in a pool of meatsticks and packaged desserts and that yellowish mass of quivering fat was just a few feet away from the open doorway sucking up some cherry moonpies.

  I threw myself forward and slammed the door, cursing myself for my stupidity, then backed away from the door, staring at the small gap below it as my mind raced and my heart hammered.

  The room was dark except for the fat shaft of dull light coming from the window above the washer and dryer. I stared at that window, thought about my aches and pains a moment, then listened to the sounds coming from beyond the closed door. It didn’t take me long to climb on top of the washer, where I stood precariously, hugging the dryer, as I reached up and opened the window.

  Not long ago, I wouldn’t have fit through that window if I’d been pulled on a chain by a semi, but as I hoisted myself up onto the dryer and clumsily crawled out, feeling as though I were managing to bump each and every sore spot on my entire body, I thought of one of those many clothing store clerks with her plastic grin and perky, bird-like voice and I grunted to myself, “Take this to your fucking Husky Department, you bitch!”

  With a sound like someone overturning a full spitoon, the thing rushed into the laundry room from beneath the door and I glanced back to see it engulfing a row of Ding-Dongs.

  The world tilted as I squeezed out the window and the ground outside slammed down on top of me like a giant flyswatter. The inside of my head lit up for a moment and the pain was so great that I thought I would be sick. I laid there for a long moment, bathing in my pain, then, after several rapid, desperate gulps, I managed to hold down my gorge and began crawling, slowly at first, then faster and faster until I was on my feet and staggering around to the front screen door like a drunk when I realized that as soon as that glob of fat was through sucking up all that junk food, it would be oozing its way back out of the laundry room to look for… well, for me.

  My bare feet thumped across the porch, I burst into the house and into the sewing room. I could hear it in the laundry room, slurping and gurgling, as I slam
med the door. Dropping to my knees, I grabbed the baseboard and slammed it against the bottom of the laundry room door, dragged the bucket of nails to my side, got up for a moment to grab the hammer and began nailing the board to the door. The slurping on the other side stopped, there was a brief shuffling and, as I drove the last nail in, the thing rushed against the door with a heavy wet slap, and I…

  Well, once the last nail was in, I leaned back on my arms, elbows locked, and began to laugh. It was an exhausted, gulping laugh, punctuated by groans of pain, but it was genuine, because the situation seemed funny at the time.

  Most people have skeletons in their closets, I thought. I have my fat in the laundry room…

  I imagined myself a few years in the future, still thin, still in good shape, but with a secret: I only stay that way if I keep feeding junk food to the growing blob of fat locked away in my dark, cramped laundry room.

  I laughed some more… until I heard a knock at the door.

  “Benji? You in there?”

  I swallowed my laughter and stood, realizing that I was a mess. My robe was filthy and my bare legs were scratched from my climb out the laundry room window. My hair was hanging in my eyes and I was trembling all over.

  “Benji! It’s Mardee!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I breathed, scrubbing my face with my hands and sweeping my hair back. “Okay, okay, I’m o… kay.”

  It slammed against the laundry room door again and so startled me, I fell against the stove, crying out in pain as I bumped one of my incisions.

  “Benji? You all right in there?” I heard the door open, heard the familiar sound of Mardee tossing her purse onto the sofa, then her footsteps as she hurried into the kitchen. “For crying out loud, Benji, what’s—”

  “I’m fine, Mardee, just fine, really,” I said, speaking too fast.

  “Fine? You’re a mess. What’ve you been doing?”

  “I was… I just… nothing. Really.”

  “But you look awful! And… and… “ She looked down at the film of slime beneath her feet. “… what’s this?”