The Patient

I sit down in my chair and flick to a new sheet on the clipboard. These days most therapists use tablets. Sometimes I think I do things just to be contrarian, I’m not sure. The clients don’t mind. They don’t even notice. In fact, it’s exactly what they expect to see and I wonder if that’s why I do it. The current guy doesn’t seem to notice, nor did the last one. I forget his name. It begins with a K. I had to spend the last forty-five minutes carefully wording any questions to avoid bringing it up. It was awkward, distracted me from his problems. He’s a flasher, or at least was.

He’s terrified of women. I can see it in the way he looks at me. If I laughed at him too harshly I think there’s a very serious risk he’d kill me. Good thing he isn’t very funny. But where did this guy come from? The current one? I don’t remember booking him but Tracy wouldn’t let any random in. Was it that guy with addiction problems? Oh Christ it’s like the name all over again. I’ll have to tread carefully.

“Why don’t we start with a little introduction,” I say, fiddling with my pen. “Start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.”

I always assume I’m the only one who daydreams during long silences. This guy looks like he’s been thinking too. Would he have just stayed silent the whole session? That’s a strange thought but he’s looking at me quite happily. I don’t normally see people with a peaceful glint in their eyes.

“Is everything okay?” I ask. “Do you feel comfortable?”

“I’m very comfortable,” he answers. God he doesn’t sound anything like I thought he would. That voice could be on radio, or more likely on some government tape ready to broadcast on BBC for when the world finally ends. Yes. That seems like a better fit. That’s a voice I could imagine professionally explaining to me to keep calm and drown the children to spare them the horror.

It’s detached. He sounds like an alien, looks like one too. If I’ve ever seen someone wearing a human-skin suit, it’s this guy.

Oh shit, he’s talking.

“…move has been difficult for me. I think you would call it a culture clash.”

“You feel alienated?” I ask.

“I feel lonely,” he answers and makes eye contact - probably not autism. In fact, for someone meeting a stranger, he’s almost so relaxed he’s stoned. Probably not social anxiety then either.

“It’s common to feel lonely after a recent move. Where did you come from?”

“I used to live at the bottom of the ocean.” He smiles. Oh good, he’s a nut.

“Care to elaborate?” I ask.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Does it really matter where I come from? You are all so obsessed with knowing things.”

“When you say ‘you’, are you referring to women?”

“No.” He shakes his head and I suppress an eye-roll. “Humans,” he replies. “All of you are obsessed with questions and answers. It’s like, imagine a cockroach interrogating you over your mortgage? It’s just like…” he shrugs and laughs, and so do I. It’s the image. It’s just stupid enough to work its magic even as another part of my mind mutters an aside.

Narcissist.

“You feel like you need to explain yourself?”

“No,” he laughs again and this time I don’t join him.

“You feel like people ask you to explain yourself?”

“I feel bored,” he says before sitting upright and I instinctively move backwards. My heart flutters, I nearly laugh at my own fear. Why did I back away? Did I think he was going to lunge? Jesus, I feel like I’m at a zoo and all the bars have disappeared.

“Very bored and very lonely,” he adds.

“Do you…” he hasn’t given me much to work with, has he? And I’m pretty good at spinning nothing into something. “Why do you think seeing a therapist might help?”

“Oh I didn’t want to see a therapist.”

“Well,” I say, and gesture with my arms at the room around me. Am I getting irritated? Is it showing? I hate these kinds of games. “You’re seeing one right now.” I tell him. “Why come here otherwise?”

“I didn’t want to see a therapist,” he repeats himself. “I wanted to see you.”

Oh.

Okay. I try to think of something funny to say, almost as a reflex. But I don’t think this is a good time to start laughing, nervously or otherwise.

“Why?” I ask, finding it the only word willing to leave my mouth.

“Because I’m bored and lonely,” he says like it’s the most natural conclusion possible.

“You wanted a therapist to kill time?”

“No,” he shakes his head. He isn’t just odd looking, is he? No. I missed it somehow. He’s actually quite unpleasant. That skin of his looks fake, uncanny almost. Something about him seems entirely off. He reminds me of a puppet or a mannequin. “No,” he repeats, “I was bored and lonely and I saw you in the street and I followed you here. That girl outside didn’t want me to come in, she said you had a patient. So I thought I’d be polite and wait. Then one man left the room and I tried to enter. That’s when the girl told me I needed an appointment, and another man beside me told me I had to wait my turn. He grabbed my arm. After that, things suddenly became less boring.

“See,” he says, smiling like he’s proven a point. “I was right, wasn’t I? I followed you and I hadn’t even spoken to you yet, but in less than a few hours I found two people.”

“Found them for what?” I ask. My heart is in my chest. I shouldn’t have been so jokey. Had I missed something? Some noise? God I hope Tracy’s okay. There’s a panic button under her desk and I hope to hell she’s hit it.

“Found two friends!” His smile is so wide now it’s starting to redden at the edges. Is the skin going to break? I think he might actually be… “I’m not bored or lonely anymore. Both the man and the girl were exhilarating, but especially the girl. She was a delight!”

Did he just pat his stomach? Why did he do that?

“I need you to leave,” I stutter. I’m not laughing now am I? I’m waiting and watching him like a sparrow facing down a tomcat. He purses his lips, his whole face snapping back to normal like a rubber band, and then considers my question. Did he just tilt his head? I think he did. Jesus, he moves like a fucking animal.

“Okay,” he nods. “I don’t normally do this. But what the hell! You only live once.”

The way he said that. He emphasised the you. I don’t like that. My head feels light but I can’t let go of all sense now. I have to stay here stony faced and watch him leave. I have to because otherwise something might happen. I don’t know what but I have this terrible feeling deep in my stomach that I’m alone with this man. There is no next patient out there, nor is there Tracy. They’re gone. Dead, perhaps? I don’t know. But if I screamed right now the only one who would come barrelling towards me is him.

“Please don’t return.” I manage to muster the words just as he leaves. I immediately regret it because he looks back and smirks and for a split second, I really do think he’s going to come at me.

Why did he pat his stomach!?

But he just opens the door and leaves. He doesn’t even shut it and for a moment I’m telling myself to stand and call out to Tracy but instead I open my mouth and feel the tears come. I sob. I sob so hard my whole body is shaking and I curl my knees up to my chest. I’m not quiet. I desperately want someone to come in. I think I hear the elevator ding. Has he left? Please come in, Tracy. Please. Don’t leave me alone. The longer I sit there while nothing happens the more I start to accept the nightmarish feeling deep in my stomach. Something is wrong. Tracy isn’t coming. And that’s when I hear the flies. There are only one or two, but their buzzing is as clear as day.

Fresh meat.

The words pop into my mind like a neon sign in total darkness. It’s those flies—those big fat blue bottle flies whose meaty buzzing reverberates through my head like microphone feedback. They’re attracted to something. They want something. I can’t take it anymore. I need to go look. I take a moment to catch my breath. I don’t want to leave my chair, but I make myself get up anyway.

I approach the door with a tentative greeting hoping to hell that Tracy will answer. But she doesn’t, and I step into the reception area and finally see that what’s left of my receptionist still at her desk, hands calmly on the keyboard. I recognise the acrylic nails painted red. The colour matches the gory stubs of her wrists. I can’t help but wonder where the rest of her has gone, and why the only sign of my next patient is a greasy stain on the carpet and something hanging from a lightbulb.

-

I’ve spent all day answering questions. Normally I’m the one asking. Is that ironic? I always thought I had a good command of irony but right now my mind is dust. I think the policeman driving me home has tried speaking to me once or twice. I can’t bring myself to reply. I don’t like being this close to a stranger. I can smell the dampness of his clothes and hair, and I only ride in other people’s cars when something is wrong.

He drives a different route to reach my house and when we arrive it takes me a moment to recognise the building from such a different angle. My car isn’t in the driveway. This is the house my neighbours must glimpse during the day, the building I leave behind each morning. Are the walls always that high? It looks so big now. And there’s something else, something different about it. This isn’t the same exact same house I return to each night.

My bedroom light is on.

“Anyone home?” the policeman asks. He tries to sound calm but I can detect an undercurrent of tension in his voice. He’s noticed the lights as well.

“There shouldn’t be,” I say. “Can you take a look?”

“Of course,” he answers with a smile. That crooked English nose of his makes me think of a postman. I don’t know why. It just does. “I’ll be back in a second.”

He’s trying to seem calm, but just before he steps onto the welcome mat he checks his shoelaces, briefly adjusts his helmet, and his hand falls to the baton and radio on his belt in one smooth sweep. Am I being paranoid? When he knocks on the door I decide that, yes, I am. I hastily undo my seatbelt and leave the car. When I start to run I know he hears my footfalls because he looks back, and for the briefest moment he’s afraid. But then the fear slips away and he’s pleased to see me. I realise that I’m holding my keys out to him. How else was he meant to go inside?

He takes them and quickly unlocks the door. He goes first and I follow soon after. My house looks oddly empty. I’m not sure how to explain it except that it feels as if the rain is trying and failing to keep the silence at bay. Just a storm, I tell myself. To help the sullen mood I turn the lights on while the policeman checks around. Before I reach the last switch he’s already in the kitchen, and then the living room, and then he comes back. I say nothing when he looks at the staircase and neither does he. We just smile at each other before he sets off while I linger patiently by the foot of the stairs. The sun hasn’t set yet but God it’s dark in here. The top of the stairs is barely visible. It looks like a hole.

I’m safe, I tell myself.

There’s a muffled bang and I jump. Probably just something falling over, I think. Time stretches on. When I look back towards my living room I see that the sun has continued to set and now my opaque windows are catching the shadows of nearby trees. The way they lie across the film-coated glass makes them look like strange hands clamouring to get in. He was so quick moving through the ground floor. Why is he taking so long? I hate this fear and anxiety. It physically hurts. This is why people go into scary murder basements and call out to the dark. In the real world it’s always a toppled wheelie bin or a winged bird that’s making those strange sounds. It’s only in the movies that Michael Myers slips out of the shadows.

It really has been too long now. I want to cry out and ask if he’s okay. Shouldn’t I at least hear him shuffle about? There are only three rooms up there. It doesn’t make sense. I should go up there. I should take the first step because in real life there is no murder basement filled with monsters. And right here right now, that’s just my upstairs floor. It’s just a place. It’s where I’m going to sleep tonight, where I’ll drink wine and watch Netflix and maybe half-heartedly browse Tinder.

There’s a sound, something from the kitchen. It’s a gentle rumble, like the pipes when I run the tap. Except that can’t be the case although sometimes I hear that sound if I run the bath and pop downstairs to grab a bottle of wine. That must be what it is.

Someone’s running a bath.

I should leave. I’ve done the maths. Something is wrong. But for some reason, now is the moment my legs decide to work. I climb the first step and I feel something welling up inside me. It’s anger at being afraid. Whatever’s up there, I need to prove it doesn’t exist. This afternoon was a one off. A kook. A nut. Nothing to worry about, but deep down I hear a voice screaming over and over:

Leave. The numbers don’t add up.

I reach the top of the stairs. I can hear water running clearly now. Someone is running me a bath. Wait, why would I think that? Why would I think someone is running me a bath?

I push the bedroom door open and am greeted with the prone form of the policeman. He’s lying completely still, naked and pale like a chicken in the supermarket. He’s looks almost peaceful, arms by his side, and next to him are his clothes all neatly folded. At the back of the room, I can hear someone in the bathroom. They’re humming and the cadence of their voice is sickeningly familiar. I have to leave now. There’s still time. There’s a door, slightly ajar but I don’t think I’ve been spotted.

The door swings open. I freeze. I try to scream but all that comes out is a brittle hiss. Even my throat has seized up.

It’s him. He’s come back for me.

“I’ve run you a bath,” he says, gesturing to the room behind him. For some reason I respond,

“Okay.”

I think I nod, but I might just be shaking from terror. I want to mention the policeman but I can’t acknowledge it because what if that’s what sends the madness all crashing down?

“Come here,” he says and I obey. Holy shit, why? He seems polite. Doesn’t he seem polite? I don’t know what he wants, do I? All that matters right now is surviving because each time I look at the man on the floor the more his death registers in my mind. There’s a fucking dead man on my floor. Half-hour ago he was a real live human being but now he’s just cold cuts in waiting. Now he’s just a thing.

I don’t want to die.

I reach the man and he doesn’t touch me. He just gives the door a little push and it swings open all the way revealing the tub still running.

“Go on,” he says.

He wants me to get in.

I step forward and dip my fingers in the water, just to see if it’s real. It’s not only real, it’s scalding, and I cry out involuntarily. Oh shit. The sound of my own voice makes me feel like I’ve dropped a stack of plates right next to a hibernating bear, but he just tilts his head like a dog. It takes a second for me to realise he wants an explanation.

“It’s too hot,” I say and from the sound of my own voice I must be crying. He shrugs as if to say, ‘how am I meant to know?’ then reaches into the tub to undo the plug while turning on the cold tap. He stays there staring at the water, his back turned towards me. Is this the moment I should run? Is it even an option?

“I think that’s okay now,” he says and my heart breaks at the missed opportunity. If only I wasn’t so fucking paralysed with terror, I might just have a chance of fleeing. But there’s that voice again:

Don’t turn your back to him.

He wants me to check the water. It means getting closer to him. Oh God no, please no. I don’t want to. He looks wrong. His eyes and face and mouth look all wrong. It’d be better if it really was Michael Myers. Underneath that mask was just a man. An actor. But underneath that face is something completely different.

I try not to look at him when I touch the water. It’s cooler now, not ideal but good enough I suppose for…

He wants to me get in. The thought sweeps over me like a panic. Oh God he wants me to climb in. I’m here and I’m all alone and he wants me to have a fucking bath! Why? Why would he want that? He’s staring at me and waiting. Is this preparation? Preparation for what!? What… what am I meant to do?

He doesn’t speak again, but he does gesture to the tub with the faintest hit of irritation and I find it terrifying to behold. He’s not human. He’s an animal, a thing. What will he do if I make him angry? Tracy made him angry and all that was left were two disembodied hands and a stain. I can’t let that happen. I have to…

I start to unbutton my blouse. He does not look at me hungrily, but with great curiosity. This is wrong. This is all wrong. Even as I strip away my tights and hesitate before pulling down my underwear I realise this isn’t what I think it is. Something’s missing and somehow that scares me even more than if he was drooling at the sight of my naked body.

There they go, dropping to the floor past my ankles. I step out of them and use the momentum of my feet to keep going. If I stop I may pass out and never return. I take extra care when getting in the bath. I don’t want to slip, or struggle, or even pause. I don’t want to give him an excuse to touch me. This whole time he’s just looked. He hasn’t savoured, I think. He’s just looked at me like a dog watching traffic.

“Good,” he says once I’m settled in. I’m breathing so heavily the water ripples with each exhalation. It’s a fight to keep the sobs bottled up. “While you have a bath,” he adds, “I’m going to eat. After that you can join me. Does that make sense?”

I nod.

He nods too. Then he steps out of the room, turning the lights off as he goes. I’m left in the dark, only the grey light of my bedroom filtering through a slight gap in the door while I curl my knees up towards my chest and watch tears run into the water. For a moment I consider actually washing myself but then I hear it.

It sounds like wood splintering followed by a wet pulsing gurgle. Oh Jesus that sound. Oh fuck I know what that sound is. It’s awful. I can hear what he’s doing and I think I’m going insane. That’s why he patted his stomach. He’s groaning while he eats. He’s groaning and this time it really is like a sexual release. He’s cracking and snapping and tearing and gagging at the rate of his own consumption. Stretching, pulling, breaking. There’s no escaping this. I can’t see anything but I know he’s eating the policeman and I’m stuck in this bath while that thing gorges itself just outside my door and when he’s done he’s going to come in and gorge himself on me and oh God…

Oh God please let me die first.

It feels like an eternity and when the slobbering and snapping finally stop the water has gone cold. There are a few seconds of silence and then he enters and I see that he is completely clean. He should be covered in gore. Perhaps he didn’t… but then I glimpse the stain on my floor just before he shuts it. There’s no carpet for that mess to sink into. It’s just a puddle formerly known as a man. Is that a joke? Oh shit I really am going insane. But still that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? Moments ago there was 250 pounds of crooked nose policeman walking around but now he’s just calorific content. Was he eaten whole? Was his body collapsed, crunched, compressed, and forced into the man’s gullet?

I look at him standing there. His head is turned. He’s watching me again. Should I start washing myself? Is that what he wants? He looks so normal and I find that most upsetting. There’s no bulging gut or sagging waist. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. Where has the policeman gone?

The man sees me staring and gives me a quick smile before patting his stomach.

It’s too much.

I pass out.

-

When I awake, I’m on my sofa. I’m lying down and I’m dry and dressed. They’re the same clothes I wore earlier and my hair is still wet; I feel violated at the thought of him touching me. Somewhere behind me he is moving but I’m afraid to turn and look in case it draws his attention. I hear the sound of plates and I think he must be in the kitchen, who cares? My door is just a few metres away. I think I can make it, so I begin to move my leg. There might just be a chance I’ll be able to slip out without him noticing.

“Come eat,” he says and I freeze before one foot is even on the ground. I twist my head around in fear and he’s staring at me, head tilted as if he’s listening to the sound of my racing heart. His face is so neutral he looks stupid and I wonder if there’s even a brain in that head, or whether its hiding just out of view. I can almost imagine puppet strings rising into the rafters.

“Come,” he repeats himself and somehow he laces the words with a kind of poison that curdles my stomach and causes acid to rise up in my throat.

Without really knowing why I stand up and enter the kitchen. The table has been laid out for a single person and he beckons for me to sit at my place. I comply, pulling the chair in while he sits across from me.

“I like you,” he says and I’m struck once more by just how cold and disinterested his tone is. He doesn’t say it as a consolation, or as a point of pride. But rather it’s just a novelty, like he’s observed an unusual sign on the side of the road. “You will eat.”

Eat what? I wonder. There’s nothing on my plate. I expect him to explain, to say something, but he stares at me for long seconds in complete silence. When he finally opens his mouth no sound ever comes out. Instead it keeps growing like a rubber prosthetic until something bulges against his lips. I’m so terrified I shut my eyes without thinking, wrenching them open only when I hear a loud tear and something large explodes from his mouth and onto the table in a clattering of gore and acid. It comes to a stop on my plate and by the time I look up from the dismembered torso sizzling on my tablecloth, I see that the man’s face has returned to normal.

“Eat,” he says.

“I can’t,” I mutter hopelessly.

“You can’t fly or regrow lost limbs or walk on the sun,” he says. “But you can eat.” He waits a beat while I look down at the dimpled lesion-riddled torso, bones and organs visible through tissue-thin skin. “Don’t make me demonstrate this fact to you,” he adds. “You can eat.”

I want to dissociate right now. I want to have another out of body experience and imagine someone else doing these things. I don’t want to know what I’m capable of. I don’t want to have to do this, not step by step. I want to hide, to retreat deep within my subconscious. Even as he reaches outwards and sinks his fingers into the soft belly to pull free a strip of flesh I keep waiting for my mind to go somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

“Eat,” he says, perfectly calm, giving the slither of flesh a flick to catch my eye. “You’re boring me.”

When I look I see something move behind him and I realise it’s his shadow, except it looks nothing like him at all. The mere outline suggests a kind of dimming madness. The firing neurons of a dying brain as all colour drains, time stops, and one by one the lights turn off. He reaches out and grabs my wrist and his skin is like soft coral. He puts something in my fist and then lets go before sitting back. I know what he wants me to do, I’m just not sure I actually can. I open my hand and stare at it. It doesn’t even look human. It looks rotting offal and smells like it too, like something cut open from the belly of a predator.

“Eat,” he repeats himself and I realise it’s for the last time.

I don’t want to die.

I open my mouth. I throw the scrap of skin and muscle in and swallow it whole, only for it to immediately come back up and slither across my tongue. It tastes like battery acid with a rotting flourish and it hits the cloth without a noise, quickly followed by a stringy river of bile. When it finally ends I bring my teary eyes up to focus on his face.

He looks sad, almost disappointed.

“I’m bored.”

Something snaps. The knife he’s placed beside me is long and serrated, and it’s in my hand before I even realise I’ve made the decision. Now I’ve finally dissociated. Now I’m watching someone else step into my shoes and take over. And this woman, she takes the blade and drags it against his wrist with such savage strength I could almost cheer.

“Fuck you!” she screams… I scream. “How’s this for fucking boring!”

I’m sobbing as I say the words, but the sound of defiance in my voice pleases me. And it doesn’t stop there. I’m up and running before I see the outcome. I’ve never felt as fast as I do right now. I’ve never felt my heart beat like this, or felt my muscles burn with such savage purpose. I hope to God my body understands what’s at stake right now because I can’t afford to hold anything back. I’m only a few steps from the front door now. I’ve put all my hopes on this one gamble - the door needs to be open.

The room darkens. Something has cast a shadow across the doorway and I already know that I’m going to die. I feel like time is slowing, like any second…

There’s a loud knocking and I slam into the door with a thump, surprised that I’ve made it.

“Hello?” someone says from the other side and the shadow flitters away letting light fall across my back. I’m hyperventilating, my skin ice cold and my entire scalp so tight it feels like a rubber band ready to pop right off.

“Are you there? Please let me in. I heard about what happened at work today and I don’t think you should be alone. Are you okay? I can see you up against the door.”

I throw the door open as fast I can and fall forward into my sister’s arms, into safety.

Or at least I hope it’s safe.

-

Once outside I find myself saying that it’ll be okay now, that everything is safe and well. Her cardigan is pressed into my face and I’m holding my sister so tightly it hurts. I never want to open my eyes again but I know better than that so I pull away and start hobbling down the garden path while she’s still asking a thousand questions. My mind is sluggish and it takes time to realise she won’t stop asking until I reply.

“We have to leave,” I say.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Oh my God what happened!? Is everything okay?”

I grab her wrist and start pulling but manage to walk only a few metres before I skid to a stop and my sister runs right into the back of me. I steady her by gripping her elbows so hard my knuckles turn white but she doesn’t cry out. We are both silent in the face of such all-consuming darkness. My garden and the path that leads from it are never as pitch black as they are right now. The only light comes from my house and it fades quickly in the face of such malignant shadow. What little wind there is reeks of meat and fills my nose with the coppery stench of blood, hot and damp against my shivering skin.

“What the fuck,” my sister whispers, her voice a papery scrawl. There is something at the end of the gate and it is eating light like a black hole. And yet I feel like I recognise it. I feel like the sun has swivelled around to reveal a great big eye that’s bearing down on me with scornful contempt. The weight of it is enough to crush my soul.

My sister feels it too. Her face is like a startled rabbit’s, devoid of any rationality, an empty vessel slowly filling with the ancient impulse to freeze or flee. She chooses the latter without any warning and I’m screaming after her as she bolts into the night. For a few seconds there is only the sound of footsteps followed by a startled yelp. I can’t see her. I can’t see her anywhere. It’s like the sky opened up and ate her.

But now the way is clear and I take it. Sprinting as hard as I can for the gate I am soon out onto the main road, suddenly aware that no one’s out in this weather. The streetlamps are trying fight back the darkness but failing. They can only make lonely little islands I dart between in panic. I keep thinking of something lurking in ambush in the spaces between each light and without realising it I’m holding my breath and closing my eyes. I’m barefoot and I think my soles are bleeding. I can’t be sure. They’re so cold I can’t feel a thing and it’s too dark to see. There is only pain and it’s too much to bear. Not just my feet, all of it. It’s too much and I have to stop. Up comes a wall and I practically fall against it in exhaustion.

Where am I? I vaguely recognise the street but it looks different in the dark. Maybe he’s gone? Surely he would have reached me by now? Maybe he doesn’t know where I am. Maybe I’ve gone too far. I dare myself to turn around, to look behind me, and I do, seeing only an empty road. My own house is nowhere in sight and I’ve never been so happy to be lost. There’s nothing but a dozen streetlights lined up like ever-diminishing soldiers.

And then the furthest of them goes out.

It’s accompanied by a loud pop and the sound of shattering glass. Another bursts, and then another. One by one the islands of light disappear and I feel him coming closer. It’s not just something that slithers through my mind, it is a raw physical sensation that pulls at my skin and turns my muscles to jelly. It is enough to motivate me to move, and I look towards the nearest house and hobble towards the door, grateful for the sight of bright lights in the windows and… is that a woman?

I hit the door so hard my fists sting but I don’t stop until the door opens and I nearly plant one right on old man’s face. His wife is behind him, terrified, and I barge forward sobbing. The man looks threatened, I think he’s still in survival mode. Is that a bat? But the woman has locked eyes on the state of me and there’s a softening in her eyes. I’m babbling and they’re listening. They lock the door at my suggestion and immediately take me to the living room while the woman runs into the kitchen to phone the police. I want to take in my surroundings but all I notice are the back and front doors, thinking that if he comes through one I can flee the other. But what then?

I can’t just keep running.

“Drink this.” The old woman arrives with a glass of water and I take it, surprised to find I actually want it when I gulp it down it in one go. I must have been thirsty. The woman speaks again and I jump. I look at her blankly and she repeats herself: “The police are on their way. What did you say happened? A man attacked you? Killed your sister?”

Has the old man got a bat? No. It’s a cane, he’s just holding it like a bat. It makes me uncomfortable to think of what will happen if he has to try and use it. God, they don’t really know, do they? No one does. And they’ll never believe me. I answer them as best as I can anyway, struggling to meet their eyes when I do. I don’t want to deal with this feeling. It’s like shame, like if anything were to happen it’d be my fault. But it would, wouldn’t it? In a sense, at least. That makes me feel like dirt.

Outside something shatters and I’m up in an instant, running towards the backdoor while the old couple call after me. They’re terrified too but right now I don’t care. I have my hand on the backdoor but my body freezes when a knock comes from the door. It’s loud, the thumps spaced a little too far apart. An ersatz knock for an ersatz man.

“Hello? Police. Let me enter.”

It works. The old man shouts something to me and turns towards the door. He told me it’ll be alright, I think. I don’t know. I’m too busy trying the handle and coping with the realisation it’s locked.

“Where’s the key!?” I howl, my voice like a banshee’s. I think the old woman answers but it’s just a platitude. Right now her husband’s at the door and pulling the chain. I don’t have time to find the key, but the stairs are between me and the entrance so I sprint towards them and flee into the unlit upperfloor. My feet greet the last step and I’m out of view just in time to hear the door open. I stop running now and start tiptoeing my way to a nearby door. From downstairs I hear the old man’s greeting cut short. After that there are no other sounds and I hurry to the nearest bedroom, looking for places to hide.

I don’t think this is the master room – there’s a small table with a sewing machine, old exercise equipment covered in white sheets, and a double bed filled to the brim with tiny cushions. I’m reminded of the couple downstairs. I almost feel sick at the thought of the old man swinging his cane as that thing descends on him and his wife, but I make for a large treadmill folded up in the corner of the room anyway, hoping to hide. It’s big enough to hide me and I slide under the sheet without making much noticeable difference.

I think.

I hold my breath and will myself into total stillness, my chest close to bursting. Once again I think that I can’t keep doing this. Sooner or later I’ll have to give in. He won’t stop following me. Even now I can hear footsteps rising on the stairs. My body vibrates with a tension I don’t think I can contain for much longer, but I do not make a noise, not even when the door glides open. I can feel him looking at me right through the cover at my back and I feel utterly pathetic, like a child. Who am I fooling?

I’m so close to throwing the sheet up and giving in when I hear him leave. I know I didn’t imagine it. The door really did swing shut, but I hold my breath and keep still. How much longer should I wait? It feels too long. What if he left the hous and I just didn’t hear him? The sound of my heartbeat is like a thunderous drumming, I could easily have missed it. I decide to leave my hiding spot and look outside the nearby window. I move as silently as I can, shuffling along on all fours, my way lit only by moonlight. The worst thing that could happen now is a loose floorboard but I don’t dwell on that.

A quick peak out the window shows a man walking past the house. I wonder if it’s him but I can’t be sure. There hasn’t been a peep out of the ground floor for a long time, but I do pick up the faintest hint of a draft. Chances are the front door is still open. Oh God, I hope the old couple are okay but I know they’re probably not. That was probably him I spotted after he’d left, finally full after tearing his way through my life and eating every poor bastard along the way. I can’t even bring myself to think of my sister but for a moment the grief mingles with terror and I slide back down to the floor, all relief tempered by the memory of the price I paid for a few measly hours of life.

I can’t stay here. I decide that if I’ll leave I’ll do it so quickly that even if he is lingering in the darkness there’s a chance I’ll be able to sprint past and escape. If he has finally left then there’s nothing to it. I can just keep running until I find another house, another safe place.

I prepare myself, moving towards the door and making sure to take deep breaths so my lungs are ready for the exertion. Before any doubt sets in I crawl out quietly and approach the stairs. I can’t hear anything, but I can’t see anything either. All I have to do is get down the stairs and out the front door. It’s not too far at all.

I explode into action like a runner at the tracks, throwing myself down the steps two, three, at a time. I feel the energy rise up inside me and for a few fleeting moments the door looms ahead like the gates of heaven. But to my right, in the darkness, something shuffles and catches my eye. There are only five or six steps left, I’m already half-way, but I turn my head and lose my balance. One ankle twists, the other misses its mark and slides down the remaining steps heel first. By the time I reach the bottom I have deflated, unable to rise or respond.

I can’t move my eyes.

He is standing there, his jaw dislocated and his eyes hollow, looking more like a rubber suit than ever before. The woman is trapped between his leech-like jaws, folded painfully between thick sheets of muscle that drip yellow fluid down her face. Her skin bleeds upon contact, a thousand pin-prick stars of blood blooming from her pores. Her ankles are by her neck, her soles are facing in opposite directions. I don’t understand how but she’s still alive and I’m reminded once again of a dying animal caught in the thralls of shock. She can’t even look at me. She just stares into empty space while the man’s body heaves and powerful muscles compress her whole body with audible cracks. There is a shudder of movement and she is pulled further inwards, his lips curling around her head like a hood with the string drawn. She’s trying to wiggle her feet now, her eyes fluttering side to side while her mouth gapes open in terror.

When it is over she slips into his abdomen with a final gasp of air and I let out a terrible sob. He stands there for a few seconds more, shivering with excitement, until his eyes finally roll back into their sockets from some impossible space in his head. I have given up trying to understand him, but I’m beginning to suspect he’s bigger on the inside than the outside, and that there’s room enough in there for me and others to spare. He offers a thin-lipped smile before turning to the open door. He is thoughtful.

“This is a very strange place,” he says, possibly to me but maybe to no one in particular. “No one will eat with me. But you eat with each other. I see it. But no one will eat with me.”

He sounds almost sad.

“Have it your way then. I will continue to eat alone. I will leave.”

He walks towards the door but stops and I realise I feel nothing. No relief or excitement or dawning terror. I can’t quite bring myself to believe this night will end in anything other than abject horror.

“Oh, yes,” he adds like an afterthought while turning to face me. Here it comes, I think. My death.

"You can have your sister back.”

-

It takes them three days to stabilise her and I am there the whole time. Sometimes I wonder if he returned the right person. I imagine it likely he can’t tell us apart, or if he can he doesn’t care. But then I sometimes catch a light of reflection in her eyes that convinces me this is my sister, even if her skeleton has been reduced to two-thirds its original height, every hair singed off, and her skin thinned to a translucent sheet.

She hasn’t spoken. The police have questions but I have no answers. At least they let me visit her. I love her, even if I never liked her. Besides, no one has ever deserved a fate like this. They say they will be able to graft most of her lost skin but they are baffled as to the full extent of what happened. So am I, I tell them. She is diminished in every sense of the word, and as far as the neurologists can tell her brain is riddled with lesions the size of almonds. You can tell when she looks at you there’s nothing but a patchwork web of thoughts and memories trying but failing to fire. I have worked with dementia patients who share the exact same look but nothing quite compares to the sight of her bones sagging in her flesh. They had a word for it, but I don’t remember. All it really means is that her skeleton is as soft as cardboard, seemingly dissolved from within and leeched of all calcium. If you lift her elbow, the forearm bends like a plastic ruler.

She should be dead, they say. And I agree, often dreaming of working up the courage to walk in here and finish the job. When she looks at me I think that’s what she is asking for but I can’t say for sure because sometimes all I see is a broken and battered doll with a misshapen and swollen head, like something you’d find at the bottom of a dumpster. I can’t read that sort of face. She’s crossed some threshold I hope to stay far away from. But I still visit. Guilt is a powerful thing and it’s one of the few genuine emotions I can feel. That and exhaustion. When I manage to sleep I dream of the ocean and he's always there, somehow aware of me from an incalculable distance.

I don't think I'll ever feel safe again.