Bodies Are Disgusting (13 page)

The freshly cleaned porcelain is such a
welcome sight that it almost pains you to ruin it. Another spider
falls into the water of the bowl chased by a dark slime that might
be a mixture of mucous and blood. You heave, and more of it drops
into the water with a sickly plopping sound. Another heave, and
it's mostly bile. Then another, and you start to see tiny white
grains floating to the surface of the water. It almost looks like
you'd eaten Styrofoam pellets for lunch, but the granules all burst
as soon as they come into contact with the air. Tiny little spider
hatchlings writhe in the toilet bowl, which makes you heave
again.

Before they can start to crawl out, you flush
the toilet and let out a strangled wail.

* * *

Simon whimpers and your head snaps up as if
you had almost dozed off. A quick glance around reveals no
arachnids in the immediate vicinity, and no sign of their crushed
bodies or the egg-laden ichor you have just been throwing up. Your
throat feels raw, but more as if from screaming rather than
retching. All signs point to the experience having been just a
nightmare.

Desperate for
something good
, you take
it as encouragement. If you can have a nightmare, it means you can
maybe, finally, pass out. You glance around the room again,
double-checking the corners where you'd dreamed there had been
cobwebs. Still nothing.

Perhaps you can sleep, but not here. You
shuffle back to your room after pulling Simon's blanket up over his
shoulders and fall into your own bed.

The effort is rewarded with
dreamlessness.

* * *

The next morning is, again, quiet. Simon seems
capable of taking care of basic bodily functions on his own, but
you find him standing despondently in front of the fridge when you
finally stumble downstairs. The situation would be comical if it
weren't for the disconcerting way he reaches out, grabs the handle
of the door, opens it, and slams it shut with a muffled gurgle. He
does it three times before you make it to his side and place a hand
on his arm.

"I get it: you're hungry," you say in tones as
soothing as you can muster with your throat so raw. You nudge him
aside with your elbow and hip. "Shove over and I'll make you
something." He acquiesces, though you aren't sure if he is
responding to your words or the fact that you physically prodded
him out of the way. Perhaps that's something to experiment with
later.

You pull open the refrigerator door and
immediately regret it.

The stench is awful. Likely, you'd missed it
by standing to the side, out of direct line of sight, but now that
you are the agent opening the fridge, it's unavoidable. The light
inside flickers vaguely, but it's overgrown somehow with mold.
Everything is covered with the stuff: fuzzy,
gray-to-green-to-black, and damp. There's no way that anything in
the refrigerator is salvageable. Everything is either rotted or
near enough to rotting that you would have no compunction simply
throwing the whole appliance out. You let the door swing shut as
you try not to gag.

"Ugh. God. Fuck. Okay, new plan. I'll go get
something for you," you say. He moves when you jostle him away from
the fridge, effectively herding him back toward the living room.
Before you manage to get him there, he shuffles to a halt. His
shoulders tremble and you spend a few moments trying to urge him
forward before he plants his hands firmly on the doorframe. It's
clear that he will not budge. "Dude, come on!" you snap, but he
remains obstinate.

It takes another moment for the realization to
dawn on you why: the last time he'd been there, something obviously
traumatic happened that robbed him of his ability to form words, if
not more. And you are an absolute heel for trying to take him in
there to "settle down." Feeling your face flush with shame, you
duck your head and tug on his arm. "Okay, sorry, new plan.
Upstairs. I'll set you up to watch something, then I'll go get us
some grub."

With you no longer herding him toward the site
of
whatever
, Simon becomes pliant. He allows you to shift
his nightstand so you can rest his laptop on it, and he allows you
to arrange him in the best approximation of comfort you can manage.
When you're certain he's settled, you get him a glass of water that
you set on his desk and go get dressed. You'll deal with the mess
in the fridge later, when you return.

You feel shitty, so you decide to dress up a
bit: binder, your second-favorite pair of jeans, button-down shirt,
and a soft plaid sweater. The good jewelry is reserved for special
occasions, but you have a set of nice surgical steel studs that you
put in your facial piercings and a pair of glittery plugs for your
ears. The weather is chilly, but not damp, so you only grab a
zip-up hoodie and a pair of sneakers on your way out. There's no
need for your boots or a heavy jacket.

Your rental, thankfully, has heated seats
(something you will probably have to get in your new car, now that
you know how awesome it is), so you are quite comfortable by the
time you pull out of the neighborhood. The streets are quiet this
time of day; it feels like you are the only soul on the road. You
don't even see any token dog-walking stay-at-home parents or
dedicated joggers on the sidewalk. The naked trees you pass are all
solemn and still and devoid of any winter birds or squirrels or
other fauna.

The stillness becomes oppressive. And then you
turn on your radio. You're greeted with static, interspersed with a
burst of music–just a few bars–here and there. You nearly swerve
onto the curb as you try in vain to find a channel that isn't just
a garbled mess. As you right the car, the static resolves into the
tinny plucking of a music box. The same notes repeat in marching
succession before a breathy feminine voice takes over. It cracks
with static as she counts slowly from zero to nine and back again
three times.

You've been around that conspiracy theory
board long enough to recognize that you've somehow picked up a
numbers station, despite the car only having an AM/FM radio. It's
eerie, but you let your fingers slip from the radio's face-plate
and return your hand to the steering wheel.

The music box tones play again, and the
artificial woman's voice dives into the numbers, "121, 111, 117,
97, 114, 101, 103, 111, 105, 110, 103, 116, 111, 100, 105, 101."
She repeats the sets two more times before the plunking music box
plays again. She recites another set, her artificial voice even and
modulated, "121, 111, 117, 114, 102, 108, 101, 115, 104, 119, 105,
108, 108, 109, 101, 108, 116." Like the first set, she repeats it
two more times before the music box notes signal the end of this
particular message.

The voice on the radio starts another message.
"119, 101, 119, 105, 108, 108," the voice intones. With each
passing digit, it grows somehow impassioned and eager. The hair on
the back of your neck pricks up as it continues, "102, 101, 97,
115, 116, 111, 110, 121,
111, 117, 114, 98, 111, 110, 101,
115.
" Instead of simply repeating the numbers again, the voice
cycles through the last eight triplets. It reaches a fevered pitch
as the music box begins playing again, fighting for dominance over
the no longer artificial-sounding voice. The both grow louder,
flooding your ears until it's almost like savage creatures
shrieking and you can't stand it, you just want it to stop, you
punch at the radio but it won't turn off, there's no way to turn it
off, there's no–

Everything feels like it moves in slow motion.
You've removed both of your hands from the steering wheel to cover
your ears from the shrill sounds of the radio in an almost
reflexive reaction. The sounds bore into your skull until your
whole focus has narrowed to the mechanical noises crashing through
the speakers. Your experience narrows, refocuses, and coalesces in
a staticky shrieking before you catch a glimpse of something out of
the corner of your eye. It won't stay still long enough for you to
gauge its form; all you can make out are luminous saucers that
might be eyes and a mass that doesn't belong to any local animal.
It hovers near the edge of the road for a split-second and
reappears in front of you before your face meets the airbag and
everything goes quiet.

When you come to a few seconds later, blood
trickles down your face from your right nostril and a shallow split
in your forehead. Your glasses are bent, but, after a few seconds
struggling, you are able to set them right despite your slick and
trembling fingers. At least they are a close enough approximation
to properly set that your vision is not skewed when you set them
gingerly back on your nose. At least the radio is silent
now.

You use the deflated airbag to wipe away the
worst of the blood on your face, then throw open the driver's side
door and pull yourself out of the car. For a long, terrifying
moment, your knees don't look like they'll support your weight, but
you clutch at the car door until the shaking subsides enough that
you can push yourself away and stagger around to survey the
damage.

Calling the hood dented is a gross
understatement: it looks like whatever you struck took the few
moments of your black-out to cave it in with a sledgehammer. The
front bumper is entirely missing, as is one of the front tires, and
a cursory glance around does not yield any clues as to where they
went. The only thing you can say with certainty is that they are no
longer attached to the car. Whatever caused the damage is,
likewise, missing. Streaks of black lead into the center of the
road, but disappear as well.

The road itself is desolate. The only sounds
are of the scraping of bare tree branches against each other.
You're still in the heart of suburbia, so there is no shortage of
two- and three-level homes in the near vicinity, but all of the
windows that you can see are dark, with blinds closed or curtains
pulled shut. Some are even shuttered, like the owners were
attempting to prepare for some sort of storm.

You pat your thigh experimentally, feeling for
the bump of your phone. It's still there, and when you fish it out
of your pocket, it's still functional. You wipe your fingers on
your pants to rid them of the worst of the wetness before
attempting to unlock your phone's touchscreen. It takes more than
one try to dial 911, and you're not even sure what you'll say once
an operator answers. "My rental was possessed and I may have hit a
shadow-monster" is not the most reasonable excuse.

As it turns out, the point is moot. You tap
the "call" button and bring your phone up to your ear only to be
greeted with low-fi hisses and pops. You hold on the line all the
same, even though a slippery and creeping dread starts to curl in
your chest. The connection clicks a handful of times, as if the
call is about to be completed, but then you're greeted with a few
more tinny bars from that awful music box recording.

It takes every ounce of self-control that you
have not to throw your phone down and stomp on it. Instead, while
your heart races, you thumb the "end call" button on screen and
shove it back in your pocket. If you want to call emergency
services (or hell, even just a
taxi
at this point, just to
get out of the cold), you have no choice but to try knocking on a
door in a nearby neighborhood.

You trudge to the nearest one, a somewhat
ostentatious dwelling with a low, stonework wall and an
immaculately manicured (albeit brown) lawn. As you walk, the wind
picks up, slicing straight through the layers of clothing you wear
and making the blood that still trickles down your face cold and
tacky. The door is solid wood with a heavy brass knocker set below
a peephole that is just as dark as the windows. Your hand shakes
and your fingers are uncooperative, but you use the knocker to rap
on the door.

The feeling of dread in your chest grows heavy
and leaden. Though you strain your ears, the only sounds you can
hear are the omnipresent scraping of dry branches and the rustling
of old, rotted leaves. No living thing stirs aside from you, and
the not-quite stillness drives you to knock again. "Hey!" you call,
leaning toward the nearest window. "Hey, I'm sorry, there's been a
wreck, can I use your phone?"

You catch a glimpse of motion off to your
side. It's just a flicker of something dark scampering between two
parked cars in the next driveway over, but it's disappeared
completely by the time you give it your full attention. Independent
of the frigid wind, a shiver crawls down your spine.

It's not too far to get home
. You'd
only been on the road for a few minutes, and all of that was
through residential areas with a posted speed limit of 35 MPH or
less. Getting back to the house, by any means necessary, takes on
an urgency that drives you to turn on your heel and plod back to
the road. No one can help you. The only way you'll make it back is
under your own power.

The sidewalk doesn't stretch very far outside
of the neighborhood, so you find yourself putting one foot in front
of the other in the leaf-choked gutter. Had it been so clogged with
detritus earlier? Everything but the evergreens has been bare for a
couple of months, and these neighborhoods are upscale enough that
surely some lawn care company should have been through and cleared
the leaves away.

There again, hovering at the edge of your
peripheral vision, you see something. You fight the instinct to
focus on it, instead keeping your gaze fixed firmly on the ground
in front of you. Without the weight of your stare on it, the shape
inches closer. It lumbers between bald trees but fails to make any
sound louder than branches scraping each other in the wind. It
doesn't seem to have a face, as such, or any sort of definite
anatomy in general. Its height does not vary, but it stretches and
squashes and collapses in on itself with only two saucer-like
things near the top of its form being the only features that are
fixed.