by Keith LaFountaine
(940 words)
He crawled out of my bathtub one night.
The image still haunts me: thin fingers rising from the drain, the skin bent and buckled, becoming malleable and doughy. Then came his spindly arms, slick with grime. His smile was so thick, so wide. I had the toothbrush in my mouth at the time and I practically swallowed it while I watched in horror.
He stepped out of the bathtub, all covered in black muck and brown ooze. He ruffled my hair like he knew me, like he’d been a part of the family for years.
“Nice night,” he said in a gravelly voice. The kind of voice I expect someone has when their throat is given a few roundhouse kicks. And then he stalked off, stark naked, into my mother’s bedroom.
I’ve tried to tell her that he’s dangerous. I told her the story about the drain, and she laughed it off, told me I was being ridiculous. I met him for coffee, she declared. But she doesn’t like coffee. She never has. She’s told me it reminds her of Dad. Reminds her of better times, when she was happy and young and thin. I can hear the quiet part loud when she talks about Dad, the insinuation. That, if I hadn’t come along, he would still be around.
I’m huddled in my bed under the covers. My Dad always said monsters can’t get you when you’re under the covers. Something about them being magical. Like protective barriers, that are universally recognized.
I hear the floorboards creaking. He’s walking around. I can tell it’s him, because he still has the smell of the drain. He’s taken a thousand showers since arriving, and he slathers himself in Dad’s cologne, but he can’t get that gutter ooze off his flesh. Not entirely. I don’t know why Mom can’t smell it, but I can. Like rotting fish and fetid meat, like fresh cat shit lingering in the box. But the kind from a cat that’s really sick. On its last legs.
I’m under the blankets when he enters my room. I don’t dare to come out from my protective fortress. If I do, he’ll get me. He’ll do something horrible. Maybe he’ll drag me down into that drain with him. Bring me down into the dark, wet deep. Munch on my legs, crack my bones with his jaw, chew on my eyeballs until they’re a white paste.
“Sonny boy,” he says in that thick voice. “I need you to understand something. Your mother is mine now. If I asked her to stick a knife in your throat, she’d do just that. She’d stick it right in your gullet, and she’d drink the blood, too. So, I wouldn’t cause any trouble if I were you. No, I’d stay good and nice. Clean up after yourself. Wash the dishes. Take your baths without being asked. And then maybe I’ll let you be. Maybe I’ll go back to where I came from.”
I don’t ask then, even though the question is burning my tongue. Where did you come from? Because I’ve seen the sewers. Or, at least, I’ve looked through the grates, where all the rainwater runs down, and I’ve never seen someone like him before.
“You don’t want to know where I’ve come from,” he says, as if reading my mind. “But trust me, it’s a dark place. A grim place. The kind of place that stinks of old water, where you have to make a bed on three-day old vomit, where you have to consider a meal between moldy beef and maggoty bread. It’s why I came here, why I climbed right up through your drain. And it’s why I’ll stay here for as long as I like, eating your food, and maybe nibbling on your mother for good measure.”
Quiet.
Then, a hand is gripping my blanket. It’s pulling at my sheet, and I can smell the bile and the death that clings to his body, semi-shrouded by Dad’s perfume. A cloying sweetness hovering just above a dark dinginess. That hand pulls down my shield and reveals two eyes, shining bright, even in the darkness. He smiles wide too, and I can see his teeth: sharp and jagged, with bits of meat stuck in the gums and blood trickling down his lips. God, his smile is so wide it could split his face in two if he stretched just a bit more.
That’s when I see another shadow, this one out in the hallway. It’s my Mom, but she’s missing an arm. A faint trickling sound is echoing, a steady drip drip drip. Blood, I realize. Plinking against the wood like a leaky faucet. She’s holding her arm in her other hand. The bone is shining, just like his eyes.
He leans closer to me, and I can smell his breath. It’s different from the sewer smell. It’s sour and metallic, like burnt pennies. His jagged teeth are inches from my eyes.
“Now,” he says. “Be a good boy. Or maybe I’ll take your arm, too.”
He stands. His legs are too long. His thin fingers are reaching out toward my mother. He grabs her arm, and she gives it willingly, a bright smile painted on her face. Of adoration. And he takes a bite out of the arm like it’s a turkey leg. Bones crunch and flesh squelches. He looks over at me with those shining eyes, fresh blood flowing down his mouth. And I can see the ecstasy in his face.
He closes the door with a hitching laugh, and I’m left in the darkness with his lingering, rotten smell.
END
Keith LaFountaine is a writer from Vermont. He has had short fiction published in various literary magazines, including Wintermute Lit, Page & Spine Literary Magazine, and Red Fez Literary Journal.